Hong Kong strives to revive Cantonese Opera
- Source: Global Times
- [15:38 December 08 2009]
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Amateurs performing at a Cantonese Opera cultural festival in Nan¬ning this year. Photo: IC
Hong Kong artist Christie To is only 16, but her aspirations to stardom are rooted in a centuries-old art form fighting extinction: Cantonese Opera.
In frenetic Hong Kong, where Cantopop and film stars hold the most sway over teenagers, To is a rarity.
Cast in the main role of a man for a professional production of Fearless Sword, normally performed by older actors, To is one of 10 young Cantonese Opera artists who have been striving to resurrect the ancient Chinese art form with modern audiences.
"We are trying to make Cantonese Opera more youthful, to change impressions that it is an art for the old only," explained To's mother, Marilyn To, who heads the government-funded Hong Kong Young Talent Cantonese Opera Troupe.
"There must be new life and the younger generation needs to take up the baton," she said.
Cantonese Opera, one of the major categories of Chinese Opera, targets tens of millions of people speaking the lively dialect, mostly in Guangdong and Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macao.
Following a golden age in the 1950s and 60s when the leading practitioners of Cantonese Opera, which involves singing, acting and sometimes martial arts, spilled into Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland, the indigenous art form has been on a steady decline.
"My heart has slowly been turning gray," commented old master Man Chin-Shui who has devoted 60 years of his life to practicing and teaching Cantonese Opera, mostly in Hong Kong. "To revive Cantonese Opera again in Hong Kong will be very difficult," he added.
