Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong

The brightest stars of Cantonese opera
The largest gathering in over a decade

This year's Hong Kong Arts Festival opens with a dazzling display of Cantonese opera.

Three double bills of Set Pieces and seminal classics will recount the fascinating story of Cantonese opera's evolution.

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25 Feb
An opening with drums and gongs
The Imperial Emperor of Heaven Holding Court*
Blessing by the God of Fortune
A Fairy Delivers Her Son to the Mortal Father*
Luk Long Reprimands His Son

26 Feb
Birthday Feast on the Mountain Fragrant Flowers*
Why Don't You Return?

27 Feb
Prime Minister of Six States*
Princess Changping

* Performed in the Classic Dialect
Unless otherwise stated, all programmes are performed in Cantonese with Chinese and English surtitles 

Cantonese Opera Treasures

by Tam Wing-pong

An hour before the evening’s performance is due to begin, the musicians are already busy on stage making preparations.

Suddenly, you hear a drum roll and the sound of a huge Chinese gong. Then another round of drum rolls and gong strikes follow. This goes on and on, with variations on the drum beats. At the 108th stroke of the gong about 45 minutes later, the performance starts promptly. Mythical characters begin to appear on stage, representing the 108 deities in the Heavenly Empire as foretold by the previous 108 drum rolls and gongs. Among them include different stars, the gods of Wind, Thunder, Rain and Lightning, the Sun and the Moon, and many more. Each character performs his or her own special routine with stylised dancing, posturing and acrobatic movements. After they have assembled, an ancient eunuch comes in and performs a dance routine accompanied by the Chinese dizi. He then calls for attention and announces the arrival of the Heavenly Emperor, who enters with a display of his entourage in majestic splendour. He ascends the heavenly throne, attends to his divine duties and sends the deities to earth with various commissions to help the mortals down below fight against evil, and bring them heavenly blessings and good fortune. The act concludes with a grand parade of all the deities.

The above is what we will see on the evening of 25 February, 2010, the opening of the 38th Hong Kong Arts Festival: the performance of a traditional Cantonese operatic work, rarely performed, known as The Imperial Emperor of Heaven Holding Court. It lasts about an hour and is a colorful display of beautiful old music, sumptuous costumes, elegant dancing and exciting acrobatic movements. However, that is not the end of the performance for that evening, but only the beginning. The proper opera which follows is a major work from the regular repertoire. It was customary for Cantonese opera troupes in the old days to precede the formal opening performance with a Set Piece at the beginning of an important festival, and this very old custom will be followed, quite aptly, to mark the opening of the 38th Hong Kong Arts Festival.

Set Pieces
The Set Piece is a very special part of the Cantonese opera repertoire, and is probably a unique feature rarely found in other regional operas still being performed in China.

In the old days, before theatres became the major venue for operatic performances in big cities, Cantonese opera troupes led a nomadic life, travelling to perform in small towns and villages, usually in celebration of major festivals or religious occasions. They normally performed for about three to five days in each engagement on make-shift stages in front of temples or in the village squares. The custom then was for the troupes to start a new series of performances with special Set Pieces which otherwise would not be performed separately on their own. There used to be several such Set Pieces in the repertoire for different occasions. Some of them were performed for purely ritualistic reasons, such as the consecration of a new stage or as an offering to the gods. However, most of these works were actually large-scaled presentations on felicitous themes to enhance the festival atmosphere and celebratory cause. More importantly, they featured the full cast and showed off the strength and resources of the troupes to attract local audiences to the shows.

The Set Pieces usually performed in those days included: The Imperial Emperor of Heaven Holding Court, performed if the festivals started in the daytime, Prime Minister of Six States, staged only on the first evening of festivals or at the beginning of a new series of performances, Birthday Feast on the Mountain of Fragrant Flowers, which is a festival piece performed internally once a year to celebrate the birthday of Wah Kong, the patron saint of Cantonese opera, while A Fairy Delivers Her Son to the Mortal Father, was usually performed together with The Imperial Emperor of Heaven Holding Court or Birthday Feast on the Mountain of Fragrant Flowers, but it could also be performed on its own on special occasions.

What is noteworthy is that the Set Pieces have retained the original form of music, singing and performance routines used in early Cantonese operas. The Classic Dialect is used in the singing and the dialogue, which is very different from the colloquial Cantonese we speak nowadays. The Classic Dialect, only used in performances on stage, is a mixture of different regional dialects from outside Guangdong highlighting the origin of Cantonese opera, which has developed from the cross-breeding of a number of regional operatic forms brought into Guangdong by travelling troupes, probably during the Ming Dynasty in the 15th Century. It was only in the past hundred years when Modern Cantonese was introduced on stage that the Classic Dialect was gradually replaced

The music we hear in the Set Pieces is a real cultural relic, which artists in Hong Kong have managed to preserve almost intact in its original form for centuries. It is played by a small ensemble with mainly percussion instruments made up of gongs, cymbals, wood blocks and drums to provide the tempo and pulses throughout the performance, and sometimes to accompany the singing (singing accompanied by percussion instruments is a very old form of operatic singing in Chinese operas, but largely lost in most regional operas). In addition, a pair of Chinese dizi and suona, two reed instruments, are also used to underline the tunes and melodies. When Prime Minister of Six States and A Fairy Delivers Her Son to the Mortal Father were performed in Beijing in 1999, many opera specialists and musicologists in Mainland China were surprised that artists in Hong Kong could still perform the original centuries-old music complete, since such music is hardly ever played in the Mainland these days, and the Set Pieces are not performed at all. In fact, the music and action of The Imperial Emperor of Heaven Holding Court was at one time thought to have been lost. It was through the painstaking effort of senior artists to restore the full score, bit by bit, from memory for a performance in November 1998, that this classic work was seen on stage for the first and only time since its last known performance in Hong Kong in 1958. It is, therefore, a very rare opportunity to hear such authentic operatic music played complete in the forthcoming Festival.

The action in the Set Pieces also forms the backbone of other operatic pieces in the regular repertoire of Cantonese opera. Characters in the Set Pieces have to perform their own special designated routines. For example, the Sun God and Moon God in The Imperial Emperor of Heaven Holding Court have to do the Sun and Moon Dance, the six generals in Prime Minister of Six States have their own heroic routine and posture, while Kun Yum in Birthday Feast on the Mountain of Fragrant Flowers has a complex routine to perform to demonstrate her divine power by going through eighteen transformations. However, these routines are not an end in themselves. They are meant to be adopted freely and flexibly, and through the combination and permutation of these routines, to form complete characters in other pieces. In the old days, when there were no formal written scripts for Cantonese opera, singers had to learn and master all the routines, so that they would be able to improvise on stage and perform according to the general outlines given to them by the stage manager. Young singers had to learn by observing senior artists on stage and gradually making progress from minor roles to major ones, which could be a long journey. The Set Pieces provided practical training courses for operatic singers in the old days.

The golden age of Cantonese opera has long gone. For a long time, professional opera troupes have had to trim down their size in order to survive, so much so that modern opera troupes no longer possess adequate resources to perform the Set Pieces properly. Fortunately, many opera troupes today have restored the custom of performing Prime Minister of Six States on the first evening of a performing season, thanks to the insistence of some senior opera singers who are keen to preserve the heritage. However, the other Set Pieces are being neglected, or are performed only in a rather perfunctory manner. With senior artists gradually retiring from stage, there is real danger that the Set Pieces will be lost forever, which would indeed be a very great loss to the cultural heritage of Guangdong. At present, only the Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong, a guild for Cantonese opera professionals, can mobilise the necessary resources to put on full performances of these Set Pieces and present them to a wider audience.

On this occasion, with the full participation of the members of the Association, we shall try to present the four Set Pieces over three evenings, in versions as full and as authentic as we can possibly achieve today. We shall also follow the tradition of performing a regular repertoire work after the Set Piece each evening. We shall take you through a tunnel of time to review the development of Cantonese opera in the last two centuries by selecting three major works from different periods which are most representative of the performing style at that time.

Luk Long Reprimands His Son will be performed on the first evening after The Imperial Emperor of Heaven Holding Court. It is one of the oldest works in the repertoire, from the 18 Prototype Operas. It will be sung in the Classic Dialect, and will showcase singing and acting which adhere strictly to the old style. The female lead, Muk Kwai-ying will perform in bound feet which is an art that is all but lost in the younger generation of opera singers because of the tremendous hardship and physical pain that must go into the training.

On the second evening, following Birthday Feast on the Mountain of Fragrant Flowers, we jump to the 1930s. Why Don’t You Return? was commissioned by one of the most famous opera singers, Maestro Sit Kok-sin, and based on a Japanese novelette! By that time, Cantonese opera was already completely “Cantonised”. The Classic Dialect was discarded and everyday colloquial Cantonese was used instead. Both singing and acting were freed from tradition. Violin and other western instruments were used along with Chinese musical instruments to accompany the singing. Why Don’t You Return? soon became the most popular repertory work, circulating widely in the community, thanks to the latest invention: gramophone recordings.

After Prime Minister of Six States on the third evening, we come to the turning point in the history of Cantonese opera, the 1960s, when the existence of the art form faced great challenges as a result of vigorous social, economic and technological changes. Princess Changping, a masterpiece by the renowned librettist Mr. Tong Tik-sang, soon became the most beloved work among opera goers in Hong Kong. It integrated plot, music, acting and stage-craft into one unified piece of musical drama, creating a new Hong Kong Style Cantonese opera. In the next four decades, Cantonese opera went through its ups and downs, but this opera has never lost its lure for the audience. Indeed this very work has done a lot to maintain audiences’ interest in Cantonese opera until a new generation of artists and audience members emerged at the turn of the century with another upsurge of interest in this local art form. Although it is now one of the most performed works in Hong Kong, we still want to present it again in the forthcoming festival, since, without it, the history of the development of Cantonese opera in Hong Kong will not be complete.

Originally we planned to present a new work on the fourth evening to look at the latest progress made in Cantonese opera over the past decades and to try to get some insight into the direction in which Cantonese opera is developing. However, due to various reasons, we will not have a fourth evening, and we will therefore not be able to give a more complete picture of Cantonese opera in this series of performances.

Cantonese opera is a treasure trove of cultural heritage in this part of the world, and local artists should take pride in their efforts to preserve this heritage against all odds. The Hong Kong Arts Festival presentation, Cantonese Opera Treasures, is a fitting tribute to their hard work and invaluable contributions.