People's Artist Trinh Thuy Mui - President of the Vietnam Stage Artists Association has just confirmed that on the morning of July 24, the Association will join the Vietnam Cheo Theater and the family to hold a funeral for People's Artist Tran Bang at the National Funeral Home (No. 5 Tran Thanh Tong, Hanoi).

The former Director of the Hanoi Cheo Theatre also has many memories of People's Artist Tran Bang. She said that People's Artist Tran Bang breathed life into Cheo to promote its own quintessential values. With his passion and talent, he built the Vietnam Cheo Theatre into one of the strongest national theatres for many decades.

He also trained many generations of directors and actors. In particular, his passion and intelligence left behind many valuable Cheo art research works with great influence on the industry. Now, many of his students have become managers, people's artists, people's teachers... who have contributed to Vietnamese Cheo.

"Although we know it is an inevitable law, the entire "cheo village" is still shocked and does not want to believe that he has left this temporary world, left his family members and generations of beloved students to fly to the white clouds," People's Artist Thuy Mui shared.

Sharing with Dan Tri reporter, People's Artist Thanh Ngoan - former Director of Vietnam Cheo Theater - said that People's Artist Tran Bang is her respected teacher. To his students, he always teaches his profession passionately and enthusiastically.

"In 1979, when he was still teaching at the Vietnam Cheo Theater, I was accepted to study there. My first impression was that he was a qualified, gentle, well-educated person. We were lucky to have him impart a lot of knowledge about Cheo.

Later, when he worked at the Ministry of Culture, he was still attached to the Vietnam Cheo Theatre. When he was 91 years old, we had the honor of organizing a birthday party for him. At that time, he was very happy because we invited almost "the whole Cheo village" to attend," People's Artist Thanh Ngoan shared.

The female artist added that her teacher was gentle but also quite straightforward, he never admitted to anything he could not do. Some methods he brought from the West that were not suitable and "destroyed the opera", he also admitted and immediately corrected.

"In recent years, due to old age and poor health, People's Artist Tran Bang has not participated much in Cheo, but he has always been a contributor to restoring traditional Cheo art.

In the past, his house was in Giang Vo, so I went there more often. Since he moved to live with his son, director Tran Luc, in Lac Long Quan (Hanoi), I only came to ask for his opinion when there was an important issue.

He was always close to us, treating us like family, and he was our father and uncle. He was a huge "shadow" of Cheo art in general and the Vietnam Cheo Theatre in particular," People's Artist Thanh Ngoan confided.

When People's Artist Thanh Ngoan studied for her master's degree, People's Artist Tran Bang was her instructor. "He wanted to share all his knowledge in the profession with me. He wanted his students to learn as much as possible, so he enthusiastically taught them.

A few years ago, when I was still the Director of the Vietnam Cheo Theater, he called me and said he was very attached to the theater, he liked sincere, simple feelings, not formality...", the female artist recounted.

Upon hearing the news of People's Artist Tran Bang's passing, artist Thanh Ngoan was deeply saddened. She believes that she and other artists will continue the previous generation to preserve and develop the art of Cheo.