Tang Ti-sheng

The end of Second Sino-Japanese War started the busiest decade, until films took over, of the 1900s in Hong Kong and SE Asia as a whole for Cantonese opera.

When Tang's work still had plenty of room for improvement, the vocal performances (and fighting scenes which were few and far between in Tang's work) made a big difference.

His preference to work with, actresses as female leads over top-billed male leads, were Fong and Hung.

His archrival was husband of an actress who is famous for mostly fighting scenes although she was also known by fellow performers as great old-school vocalist as Lady White Snake.

Fong and Hung vocal styles were both new creations at the time.

The two camps each had a usual venue on opposite side of the HK harbor.

Tang Ti-sheng (18 June 1917 – 15 September 1959), born Tang Kang-nien, was a Cantonese opera playwright, scriptwriter, and film director.

His contributions to Cantonese opera significantly influenced Hong Kong's reform and development of the genre beginning in the late 1930s.

During his twenty-year career, Tang composed over 400 operas and achieved immense popularity within the Cantonese opera scene.

He also wrote the film scripts adapted from his own operas, directed the movies and at times acted in them himself.

He collapsed in the Lee Theatre and died later of intracerebral hemorrhage in St. Paul's Hospital (Hong Kong).

He was survived by his second wife (鄭孟霞 of 17 years), their two daughters (唐淑珠、唐淑儀) and two more children (son 唐寶堯 and daughter 唐淑嫻 by his first wife 薛覺清 of five years).

With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Tang fled south to Hong Kong in 1937 where he joined the Kok Sin Sing Opera Troupe (覺先聲粵劇團) led by his double (cousin) in-law and one of the "Four Super Stars" Sit Gok Sin (薛覺先).

His first wife was the tenth sister (Sit Gok Ching, 薛覺清) of Sit while Sit was married to his paternal first cousin (唐雪卿).

Tang worked as a copyist and assistant to Fung Chi-fen (馮志芬) and Nam Hoi Sup-Sam Long (南海十三郎), two famous writers for the troupe.

Encouraged by Sit Gok Sin, Tang began his career as a playwright in 1938 with his first (being taken as an announcement of his intention to be in the arena) opera The Consoling Lotus of Jiangcheng.

Throughout the next twenty years Tang wrote a total of 446 opera scripts, while 80 of those were adapted for films.

During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Tang penned many scripts for his wife and her co-stars to stage in return for food (mostly rice) and found his footing eventually.

#2 of #30Leaped into fame with the script White Poplar, Red Tears that Yam Kim Fai found worth "giving it a try" when script was short in supply.

His first script for film production was The Tolling Bell (1940) with the help of Ng Cho-fan who in 1989 described how sick Tang looked the afternoon before collapsing in the Lee Theatre.

Tang started out as in-law of the Sit household.

Tang's rise from modesty to greatness went through a process generally taken to have three stages of remarkable improvements.

^{Ng Cho-fan}Upon the divorce in 1941/2, Tang started working mostly with Chan Kam Tong (1906-1981) (陳錦棠) to make ends meet.

It was first staged by the New Voice Opera Troupe of Yam and then adapted for a film (released 5 March 1950) starring Tang's close personal friend Luo Pinchao.

Yam also released a vocal recording of the theme song with a well-known vocalist as the female lead.

In total, Tang directed nine films and acted in four of them.

Chan, the first student of Sit, voted as champion among young warriors by the audience in the 1950s, is on record his most frequent customer.

Tang worked with musicians/composers below (See .) regularly in the 1950s.

Only some names are available in English.

Fong Yim Fun, of Sun Yim Yeung Opera Troupe, was the other actress known for, inter alia, holding her own court with vocal performances, on stage throughout the 1950s.

She worked with Tang until she retired around the time Tang died.

One example was the Hung Sin Nui December 1951 hit Red Candle Tears (紅燭淚).

^{#6 of #30}Lyrics that Tang wrote before (instead of after) Mr. Wong came up with the musical score.

There is only one title Red Silk Shoes and The Murder, with no fighting scene at all, Tang wrote for Chan in 1957 is still popular today.

Except the Chu brothers and those who had already died, they talked about Tang on radio shows in the 1980s.

A fifth (irrespective of age) child Cheng mentioned in a 1989 interview, after the passing of Yam Kim Fai, is not listed on Tang's headstone.

Tang was born in Heilongjiang province, northeastern China.

Upon graduating from the Guangdong Sun Yat-sen Memorial Middle School, Tang reportedly attended the Shanghai Fine Arts School and also the Shanghai Baptist College.

On 25 August 1989, months before Wong Yue Sang (王粵生) (8 January 1919 – 12 December 1989) died, Mr. Wong talked about his experience working with Tang on radio show (唐滌生藝術迴響).

Tang's collaboration with Mr. Wong created theme songs that were instant hits at debut on stage.