Among the wealthy and numerous Chinese opera traditions and colleges, Cantonese opera is arguably one of its most famous artwork forms among Hong Kong audiences.
It is currently the highlight of the town’s 10-year-old Chinese Opera Festival – organized through the Hong Kong government’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department – which runs till August 18 and offers several great programs from distinctive elements of China to diverse audiences and opera lovers.
We aim to keep Guangdong’s four indigenous acting arts – dabayin, narrative singing, Cantonese Song, and Cantonese operatic songs in classic making-a-song fashion – which is on the verge of vanishing.
The newly tailored A Love Poem Stained with Blood, which turned into given its first performance final Friday and Saturday at the Grand Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, can be staged for a 3rd and very last time at 2.30 pm on Sunday at the Auditorium, Tuen Mun Town Hall.
Guangdong Quadrangle – Four Folk Music Types in Concert may be done at 7.30 pm the next day and Wednesday at Hong Kong City Hall, Central, and from July four to 7 at the Tea House Theatre, Xiqu Centre, in Tsim Sha Tsui.
The Guangdong Quadrangle show comprises four indigenous appearing arts of Guangdong, specifically dabayin, narrative singing, Cantonese tune, and Cantonese operatic songs in conventional singing fashion, which correspond to the four walls of the quadrangle courtyard in Chinese structure.
Veteran Cantonese opera artist Yuen Siu-fan – who’s also in the cast of A Love Poem Stained with Blood – and Chinese tune performer Yu Siu-wah will join famend vocalists the Guangdong Quadrangle performances in the party of Cantonese track.
“[The name] ‘Quadrangle Courtyard’ may remind people of the architectural fashion in Beijing,” Yuen says.
“The ‘quadrangle’ in our performance refers to Guangdong’s four extraordinary sorts of acting arts, which might be less widely known to the public. “We aim to maintain this art paperwork which can be on the verge of vanishing.”
Yuen is a household call amongst Cantonese opera lovers, no longer best in Hong Kong butbut also amongst other Chinese groups worldwide. Having earned essential acclaim in Cantonese opera in his five-decade career, Yuen is devoting himself to developing and promoting Chinese opera’s art shape and different associated styles through performances and academic programs. “The essence of Chinese operas [xiqu] is constantly about actors,” Yuen says.
“Chinese opera become booming throughout the Yuan dynasty [1279–1368], while most people were suppressed via the ruling Mongols. “They expressed their grief and resentment via the lyrics and the melodies of Chinese opera. “Unlike the performers inside the Tang [618–907] and Song [960–1279] dynasties, Chinese opera singers had nowhere to carry out however the streets.
“Theatrical staging and fancy decor have been impossible – what they used have been virtually a desk and two chairs so that they could run away from patrolling officials more easily,” Yuen says.
“The ‘one desk, two chairs’ setting manner a lot to me, too – reminding me and fellow appearing artists approximately the essence of Chinese opera. “This is why I named the charity organization I mounted, One Table Two Chairs Charitable Foundation.”
As the muse’s debut overall performance, Guangdong Quadrangle pursuits to arouse the general public’s attention off the vanishing artwork forms, such as dabayin and narrative singing, which can also be subdivided into the banyan, mouse (muyu), any, and Guangzhou. Nanyin is acknowledged as a part of Hong Kong’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. The brothel-originated banyan has gradually become a lost art form after banning prostitution in Hong Kong in 1935.
Longzhou had been originally folk tunes sung with the aid of wandering entertainers to make a living, done to the accompaniment of a small gong and drum with auspicious speech.