Wei Hai-ming is a brilliant star nurtured by Taiwan's Haiguang Chinese Opera Troupe. A "natural talent", she possesses all the essential qualities of the diva—a graceful figure, a noble face, an excellent voice, acuity of mind, and innate charisma. The roles she has played, each a genuinely unique figure, transcend the rigid boundaries between performance schools and historical periods, winning her the fame of "a woman with a thousand faces." Her performance was highly acclaimed by the general audience, but she was not complacent.
In 1991, she went to China to study with Mei Baojiu, the son and direct heir of Master Mei Lanfang, dedicating herself to the Mei School. In addition to classical opera, she also acted in newly written plays with Contemporary Legend Theater (The Kingdom of Desire, 1986; Medea, 1993; and Oresteia, 1995) and the Guo Guang Opera Company (Wang Shi-fong, 2003; and The Golden Cangue, 2006). Building upon her solid training and superb skills, she ingeniously created unprecedented roles, winning further acclaim both at home and abroad.
Wei Hai-ming aims at bringing Beijing opera to the world's stage. In 1992, she led tours in New York, Houston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The Kingdom of Desire participated in the Festival Paris Quartiers d'Été and the Chateauvallon Festival in 1994, and in 1998 in the Festival d'Avignon and in the Compostela Millenium Festival in Santiago, Spain. In particular, her impersonation of Madame Yu in front of the Musée du Louvre, juxtaposing the past and the present, dazzled Western audiences.
She has won numerous awards, including the National Literature and Art Achievement Award (2007), the Plum Blossom Award of Chinese Theater (1996), the Outstanding Young Person of the World Award (1996), the Best Artist in Asia Award (1993), among others. She is currently the leading actress of the Guo Guang Opera Company and Contemporary Legend Theater, the President of the National Opera Association of the Republic of China, and the director of the Wei Hai-ming Chinese Opera Foundation. Devoted to promoting the art of Chinese opera, she has been teaching for many years, currently at the Taipei National University of the Arts and Taipei City's Daan Community College.
