Yang Li-hua
Yang Li-hua is a renowned Taiwanese opera performer. Born on October 26, 1944, in Yuanshan, Yilan County, she grew up in a family of theater people. Her grandfather organized a local amateur orchestra, and her mother, Hsiao Chang-sou, performed male roles in a Taiwanese opera group. Yang went on tour with her mother from a young age and began acting on stage at four. By seven she played the lead in a show called An-An Chases Chickens. She left school to study opera full-time, learning how to move on stage, stretch, perform martial arts, and sing.
She started performing in the 1950s, when Taiwanese opera began to move from outdoor stages to theaters. Hard times came as many opera theaters were turned into movie houses, and Yang, the eldest daughter, helped support her family. She made her starring debut at 16 in Lu Wen-long and joined the Sai Chin Pao troupe, becoming a popular figure alongside other stars. The group toured the Philippines, giving Yang a Southeast Asian fan base and enough money to buy a house for her parents.
As TV and movies grew, many opera troupes disappeared. The Sai Chin Pao group dissolved in 1964, and Yang joined the Tien Ma Group in 1965, which revived her career. Radio performances trained her to play multiple characters, though singing in a higher falsetto was tough after years of singing in a lower voice for male roles. In 1966, with the advent of black-and-white TV, Yang’s group was chosen for a weekly TV spot on TTV, helping to popularize Taiwanese opera on television.
In 1969 Yang became the leader of the Taiwan Television Opera Troupe, and three years later she helped unify Taiwan’s opera troupes into the TTV United Taiwanese Opera Troupe. She pushed for higher production standards, stronger research, and more training for actors. In 1981 she organized a Taiwanese opera training class and produced more lifelike, TV-friendly shows. To fit TV formats, she shortened long emotional scenes and added sharper dialogue and choreography, which drew larger audiences.
Her career produced many hits, including Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, The Legend of the Yang Clan, Xue Rengui Conquers the East, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, and A Civet for a Prince. She also starred in films such as Chen San and Wu Niang (1981) and Imperial Matchmaker (1982). She led tours abroad and staged productions at Taiwan’s National Theater. In 1995 she restaged Lu Wen-long, and in 2000 she performed Liang Zhu. She returned in 2007 to celebrate the National Theater’s 20th anniversary with new versions of operas.
Yang married Hung Wen-tung on March 26, 1983; he died in 2018. In 1996 she was named one of the “ten hottest idols” by a gay and lesbian organization.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:10 (CET).