Revival of the Cantonese Opera

WALKING along the archaistic streets of Yongqingfang Square in Guangzhou, one will notice a museum built in the architectural style of a Lingnan garden (a typical garden south of the Five Mountain Ridges in south China). That is the Cantonese Opera Art Museum. Standing as a local landmark, the “garden museum” has attracted many Cantonese Opera lovers.

- CHENG LONG & LIN XIAOXI

On April 19, the “Greater Bay Area, Greater Future” Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Cantonese Opera and Folk Arts Exchange, which also served as the launching ceremony of the third Global Micro Cantonese Opera Competition, was held in the museum. Famous Cantonese Opera artists from the three regions of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao participated in this event online and offline.

The Inheritance Mission

“A bridge flies over the Lingdingyang Bay as it extends from one side to the other side of the Pearl River...” Liang Jinlin sings sonorously at a small theater inside the museum. Liang, now 82-year-old, is a renowned Cantonese Opera performer and a provincial-level inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Cantonese Opera. The play he performs is A Bridge over Lingdingyang Bay, which unfolds to audiences the magnificence of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.

“The cultures of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao have long been integrated and fused with one another. Deeply rooted in this cultural background, Cantonese Opera stands today as the most representative art of the Greater Bay Area. The three regions have been jointly passing down and promoting the Cantonese Opera art for a long time. In 2009, after their joint application to UNESCO, Cantonese Opera was included in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity,” said Ni Huiying, president of the Guangdong Council for the Promotion of Cantonese Opera.