Lingguan is a character in the Qing novel Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the twelve girl actresses of the Jia family's private Kunqu troupe, and the one given the most space among the twelve officials of the troupe. Wikidata and Chinese Wikipedia both name her Lingguan, with the variant 齡官, and the novel gives her no other name, so the title is unchanged.[1][2]
In the troupe
Wikidata records her occupation as actor and her residence as Lixiang Yuan, a courtyard of the Rongguo house. In the article's account, when the Jia household built the Grand View Garden, Jia Qiang was sent to Suzhou and bought twelve girls, who lived in Lixiang Yuan and formed a household troupe. Lingguan was the best singer of the twelve. When the Imperial Consort visited her family she chose four plays, particularly admired Lingguan, let her choose two more, and gave rewards. She later summoned Lingguan to perform in the palace.[1][2]
Temperament
The article stresses her strong character. When extra plays were added for the visit, Jia Qiang, who managed the troupe, had her perform the scenes Strolling in the Garden and Waking from the Dream, but she insisted on the pieces of her own line, A Meeting by Appointment and A Quarrel. When the consort summoned the troupe to the palace she did not sing, saying her voice was hoarse. When Jia Baoyu came wanting to hear her sing a piece from The Peony Pavilion, the other actresses smiled and gave him a seat, but when he sat beside Lingguan she rose and moved away and refused him sternly, a rare snub for him. Jia Qiang spent one tael and eight mace of silver on a bird to cheer her up, and she rebuked him, saying she was like a caged bird without freedom, and called the Jia house a pit of confinement. Seen through Baoyu's eyes, she is slight, with a sorrowful look about the brows, graceful and "very much like Lin Daiyu".[2]
With Jia Qiang
Lingguan was close to Jia Qiang. The article tells how, under the scorching sun of the fifth month, she crouched beneath a rose trellis, weeping and writing the character for "Qiang" over and over on the ground with a hairpin. The scene touched the watching Baoyu and showed him that not every girl's heart is set on him alone.[2]
The troupe disbanded
When the Imperial Dowager Consort died, performances were banned across the country for a year, and the Jia house disbanded the troupe. Some of the twelve stayed and some were taken home by their parents. The article notes that Lingguan's name is not among those who stayed.[2]
Assessment
According to the article, the Zhiyan zhai commentary disliked her insistence on performing her own role and called her affected and bossy. Later readers are mostly positive. Yu Pingbo, for example, summed her up as stubborn, obstinate, devoted and eccentric, and praised her strong resistance despite her low rank. The episode of her writing the character for Qiang was once included in a Beijing senior high school Chinese textbook, and the writer Wang Meng praised it as written like a modern Western short story.[2]