Cantonese Opera Research Articles

Research on the English Translation Standards of Foshan Cantonese Opera Classics

As the birthplace of Cantonese opera, Foshan takes the lead in the inheritance, protection, and development of Cantonese opera. Foshan has invested heavily in the development, inheritance, and promotion of Cantonese opera, and has made great efforts. Nowadays, Cantonese opera is flourishing in various organizational forms in the settlements of overseas Chinese around the world, and is very popular among local Chinese and foreign people. Foshan Cantonese opera needs to vigorously promote the translation and dissemination of Cantonese opera to the outside world. In the translation of Foshan Cantonese opera classics, translators should take "conveying essence and meaning" as the overall guiding principle.

Importance and Feasibility of Teaching Cantonese Opera Culture in Singapore

Importance and Feasibility of Teaching Cantonese Opera Culture in Singapore

Stylized Representation of Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Characters in Animation within the Context of Cultural and Tourism Integration

Under the broad background of cultural and tourism integration, Guangzhou Cantonese Opera, as a vital part of Chinese traditional culture, has become crucial in its inheritance and innovation. This paper aims to explore the stylized representation and innovative application of Guangzhou Cantonese Opera characters in animation within the context of cultural and tourism integration. By reviewing the history and current status of Cantonese Opera culture, and analyzing the concept and trends of cultural and tourism integration, the unique role of Cantonese Opera in this integration is examined. The study focuses on the definition of stylized representation and its unique position in Cantonese Opera art, and explores strategies for incorporating traditional stylized features into the design of Guangzhou Cantonese Opera animated characters. Additionally, this paper proposes strategies for combining tradition and modernity, developing and promoting cultural and tourism products, and innovative approaches to education and inheritance, providing new perspectives for the inheritance and development of Cantonese Opera culture in modern society.

Enhancing the dissemination of Cantonese Opera among youth via Bilibili: a study on intangible cultural heritage transmission

Intangible cultural heritage is an invaluable treasure for all human beings worldwide. In 2009, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) inscribed the Chinese Cantonese Opera, also known as Yueju in Chinese Pinyin, on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The awareness of inheriting Yueju is not uncommon, but advancing methods to involve more young generations in this art form is still necessary. In this study, we focused on Yueju videos on Bilibili, a cultural community and video website popular among the younger generation. Through quantitative and qualitative research, we explored the types of Yueju videos that would have a significant spreading effect. The 1916 Bilibili videos related to Yueju were collected using Python crawler technology. We analyzed each video using seventeen variables. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) forms the theoretical foundation of this research. We constructed the Yueju transmission model with two persuasive routes based on this model. The research methods mainly comprised regression analysis, multi-factor ANOVA, and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). We invited thirty-one experts to assess the importance hierarchy of those video factors and calculate the weight coefficient using AHP. This study demonstrated the central route concerning the causal relationship between video recognition and spreading effect through regression analysis. Additionally, this research identified the optimal combination of 8 video factors using multi-factor ANOVA in the peripheral route. In this study, we focused on the niche of Yueju video transmission on Bilibili. This research utilized the ELM and hybrid methods to obtain the statistical results. Then, we developed appropriate macro-level and micro-level strategies for transmitting Yueju culture, particularly those aimed at the younger generation.

Inheritance And Innovation of Lingnan Intangible Cultural Heritage: Application Exploration of Information Visualization

This paper explores the current situation, challenges, and strategies for the digital inheritance and innovation of Lingnan intangible cultural heritage, focusing on the integration of woodblock new year painting elements. It introduces the rich cultural resources of Lingnan and highlights the difficulties faced in their preservation. The paper emphasizes the necessity of digital inheritance and the significant role of digital means in protecting and disseminating intangible cultural heritage, particularly through the application of information visualization technology. It details methods such as multimedia display, interactive experience, and data visualization, illustrating their practical effectiveness through case studies involving Cantonese opera, Guangcai porcelain, and notably, the integration of woodblock new year paintings. The paper also discusses the challenges of digital inheritance and the potential of emerging technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality in advancing the cause of intangible cultural heritage preservation. By incorporating woodblock new year painting elements, this study aims to enrich the digital representation of Lingnan culture, thus promoting its innovative inheritance and development in the digital age.

Heritage Arts and Governance: Hong Kong’s Cultural Policies of Cantonese Opera 1995-2023

Heritage Arts and Governance: Hong Kong’s Cultural Policies of Cantonese Opera 1995-2023

Shanxi Local Opera and Malaysian Chinese Opera Clothing Fabrics

This paper, literature research, and comparative research were used to systematically study the costumes and fabrics. The paper finds that the clothing fabrics of Shanxi local opera have the magnificence of ancient Chinese costumes, and the process technology is mainly color embroidery, gold embroidery, and mixed embroidery. The fabrics of Malaysian Cantonese opera costumes are relatively more luxurious, with a very obvious Lingnan style. In the end, the article argues that historical and cultural changes have dominated the differentiation of fabrics. The research can further promote the theoretical and practical exploration of the intrinsic value of theatrical costumes.

Research on Optimizing the Teaching Reform of College Opera Courses Based on Scaffolding Theory

Abstract Chinese opera has a long history and unique charm and is an important carrier of traditional Chinese culture. So, the teaching requirements for opera courses have gradually increased to ensure the vigorous development and inheritance of opera culture. To adapt to the reform and development of opera course teaching, this paper analyzes the basic concepts of scaffolding theory. It constructs an optimized framework for teaching modes based on scaffolding theory. On this basis, combined with the needs of college opera courses, it builds the framework of the opera teaching system based on scaffolding theory. It proposes the unique “modern teacher-apprentice system” based on the studio for the teaching mode of opera. Through the empirical analysis of teaching opera courses in colleges and universities based on the scaffolding theory, it can be seen that in the teaching of nine types of opera, including Beijing opera, Sichuan opera, Gui opera, Kunqu opera, Huangmei opera, Yueju opera, Cantonese opera, Yu opera, and Flower Drum Opera, the learning effect of this paper’s teaching of opera courses improves by 0.37~1.1 points compared with that of the traditional teaching of opera. The student’s ability in all dimensions improves by an average of 1.087 points. In addition, during the analysis of teaching satisfaction, the average score of learning satisfaction was 1.037, indicating that students acknowledged the reform of teaching opera in this paper. This study has significant results in the reform of teaching opera courses, which provides a reference value for the reform of opera courses in colleges and universities.

Research on the Design Application of Cantonese Opera Art in Primary School from the CTML: An Example of Guangzhou Huadu Qixing

With the progress of the times and social changes, more and more people are realizing the necessity of inheriting intangible cultural heritage and their contribution to the content of school art education. This study aims to explore the integration and development of the design and application of Cantonese opera art in primary school art education. Drawing on the cognitive framework of American psychologist Richard Mayer's multimedia learning theory, this study takes Guangzhou Huadu Qixing Primary School as the research object and conducts pilot teaching in the form of extracurricular activities recruited by art interest groups. Empirical research is conducted through questionnaires and participatory observation methods. Research has shown that integrating Cantonese opera art into primary school art classrooms not only enhances students' sense of identification and pride in traditional culture, but also enhances their creativity in applying Cantonese opera art design. During the experimental teaching process, it was found that the current integration and development of Cantonese opera art through art education is still weak, due to insufficient protection of school art teaching resources and a serious lack of school art teachers. Therefore, optimization strategies for experimental teaching are proposed: firstly, to strengthen the promotion of school culture and resource sharing with local art museums; secondly, to adopt diverse teaching methods to increase students' interest in learning Cantonese opera; and third, to build excellent teacher training for Cantonese opera art.

Application Strategies of the Integrated Development Model of Art and Tourism in Rural Revitalization—Taking Wuchuan Cantonese Opera as an Example

Application Strategies of the Integrated Development Model of Art and Tourism in Rural Revitalization—Taking Wuchuan Cantonese Opera as an Example

The Living Inheritance and Moving Progress of Contemporary Cantonese Opera from the Perspective of Communication

Between July 3 and July 28, 2023, Television Broadcasts Limited released the Hong Kong drama Unchained Medley, which used a small village in the countryside and Cantonese Opera as the backdrop for the drama. It tells a tragic and touching story of human-ghost love between pop musician Ivan Zhang and the female ghost Wan Lau Fong (Cantonese transliteration is used). Artistic elements in Unchained Medley - Cantonese Opera is an ancient form of traditional Chinese theater, a local performing art that employs Cantonese as the language of performance, singing, acting, reciting and traditional folk music, along with distinctive stage costumes and abstract forms. When reviewing Chinese and English papers published between 2019 and 2023, research on the analysis of Cantonese opera primarily focused on the transformation of performance forms and the creation of Cantonese opera repertoire content. However, there needs to be more in living inheritance with Cantonese Opera. This paper utilizes James W. Careys The Ritual View of Communication as a theoretical framework. The article mainly adopts methods such as literature review, case studies, and comparative analysis to elucidate the significance and complex dilemmas surrounding the vibrant communications of Cantonese opera in the post-COVID world. It then consolidates and summarizes research experiences related to the protection and universal transmission of Cantonese opera in every aspect, laying the foundation for the in-depth development of Cantonese opera research.

Utilising technology as a transmission strategy in intangible cultural heritage: the case of Cantonese opera performances

ABSTRACT Globalised technological advancements have radically transformed how intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is inherited in contemporary society. Despite being recognised as a Human ICH by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation, Cantonese opera is facing existential crises attributed to an ageing demographic and shrinking audience base. To survive in a rapidly changing sociocultural landscape, Cantonese opera performances in Hong Kong have embraced modern technologies, including artificial intelligence, holographic projection, and virtual reality. By exploring the perspectives of 86 Cantonese opera practitioners, this study critically examines the perceptions, experiences, and challenges associated with technology adoption as a safeguarding strategy for ICH transmission. This study revealed the complex interplay between technology use and cultural transmission, adding to heritage literature by shedding new light on audience reach, content enhancement, value creation, and funding strategies in the context of technology adoption, and the corresponding negotiation of tradition and modernity within ICH communities. The findings emphasise the importance of preserving traditional core values, identity, and artistry inherent in the performing arts of ICH, even as technology adoption becomes radically widespread, shedding light on a cautious integration of technology in ICH in this technology-focussed era.

Justice or Judgment? On Adaptations of Macbeth in Chinese Traditional Opera

ABSTRACT Macbeth has been adapted at least fourteen times into eight different opera genres since its being put on the Chinese opera stage in 1980s. As China has become more involved in intercultural communication and international Shakespeare studies, scholars have shown a growing interest in how Chinese traditional opera affects the way Shakespeare is presented. Drawing on interviews with directors and actors, this article examines the differences between Shakespeare’s Macbeth and its adaptations in Chinese traditional opera, focusing on three adaptations of Macbeth produced during the last decade in Wu Opera, Hui Opera, and Cantonese Opera. We argue that adaptations of Macbeth into Chinese traditional opera, while having their own interests and distinctive features, limit the exploration of ideas in Macbeth by commenting on the action and applying various operatic strategies and skills to didactic purposes, thus encouraging their audience to interpret the play straightforwardly as a moral fable, a chance to learn more about what is right and what is wrong. In contrast, Shakespeare’s play reveals the complexity of human nature, examining human psychology and making no explicit moral judgments of its characters, therefore leaving enough space for the audience’s ambivalent response and interpretation.

On the Practice and Exploration of Cantonese Opera Art in Aesthetic Education

In order to further carry forward the excellent traditional Chinese culture, promote the inheritance and development, promotion and popularization of Cantonese opera culture, comprehensively strengthen and improve the school aesthetic education, and achieve the effect of improving students' cultural and artistic quality. However, in the process of aesthetic education practice, Cantonese opera art has encountered problems of different degrees, such as insufficient popularization of Cantonese opera art and students' lack of interest in teaching content. Therefore, we need to combine the spiritual needs of students in the new era and actively explore the new path of Cantonese opera art aesthetic education, so that students can change from "passive acceptance" to "active exploration", so as to improve the quality of education and teaching of Cantonese opera art aesthetic education, so that Cantonese opera art can play infinite potential in integrity and innovation.

Transmediation, Transgression and Popularization: A Study of the Cantonese Opera Film White Snake

The preservation of declining xiqu heritage through remediation and transmediation has often been ineffective in attracting a wider audience. The Cantonese opera film White Snake (2021), with its unusual utilization of computer-generated technology and transgressive combination of various media, offers a fresh approach to popularizing xiqu among younger audiences. To overcome aesthetic differences between cinema and xiqu, the film transforms medium specificities and transmedial potentials of Song landscape paintings and martial-arts film, adapting them to a new scenic and choreographic setting. By altering the original play’s sensory and semiotic modalities, White Snake’s transmedia aspects blaze a new trail for popularizing xiqu heritage for a new generation.

“One Opera, Two Nationalisms”: Negotiating Hong Kong Identity and Chinese Nationalism in Cantonese Opera

Abstract: While scholarly attention on nationalism of recent Hong Kong sheds light mostly on social movements, social media, and cinema, the performative role of yueju (Cantonese opera), as a Chinese vernacular theatre, in post-1997 Hong Kong is often neglected. This case study examines how different ideologies, political consciousness, and cultural ideals come into conflict and are mediated within the Cantonese opera circle since the 2014 Umbrella Movement. By investigating both the top-down and bottom-up approaches of propaganda as well as the potential of performing the opera as pro-democracy activism, this essay interrogates the dynamics between the hegemonic Chinese nationalism and the rising political consciousness of seeing Hong Kong as a separate entity.

The Digital Classicism of the Cantonese Opera Film White Snake

This article examines the 2019 Cantonese opera film White Snake as an important case of an evolving “digital classicism,” making use of audience-based digitally produced and transmitted Chinese-language materials, among other sources. The article contextualizes the Cantonese opera film as continuing the tradition of experimenting with the White Snake theme, using the genres of local opera and opera film, and special and visual effects enabled by the newest technology. It then moves to a close reading of a series of danmu, anonymous live comments on the Cantonese opera film trailer posted on Bilibili, as important entry points for the study of audience participation in digital times. The digitally produced “ink painting–style Chinese aesthetics” of the film, its digital breakthrough as a “musical with Chinese characteristics,” as well as various forms of fan and anti-fan digital labor triggered by the film, provide further evidence on the importance of “the digital” as “processes of sense making.” The article concludes with thoughts on what difference “the digital” might be able to make in this long history of representing what has become a “classical” Chinese legend.

Russian and Chinese traditions in the piano piece by G. Ya. Ore “Fantasy of Southern China”

The subject of the research is the piece for piano solo "Fantasy of Southern China: Lady and the Flower Seller" (1931) by the Russian émigré composer Harry Yakovlevich Ore (Xia Like, 1885-1972), forgotten in his homeland. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he lived most of his life in China, where he distinguished himself as a pianist, teacher and composer. Ore left a notable mark on the history of Chinese music, including as the author of the first piano arrangement of typical qupai melodies of the traditional Cantonese opera yueju. The purpose of the study is to consider Fantasia through the prism of the refraction of the Russian traditions of the St. Petersburg school (primarily The Russian Five) and the Chinese operatic traditions yueju. The article uses comparative typological and analytical research methods to substantiate the uniqueness of the selected piece as the first sample in the history of Chinese academic music that combines the melodies of Cantonese opera with the traditions of “New Russian school”. Piano piece “Fantasy of Southern China” by G. Ya. Ore is considered in Russian-language musicology for the first time. The main conclusions of the study are as follows. In the presented composition, the composer arranged four well-known tunes of the Cantonese yueju opera - "Ba Da Ban", "Toilet Table", "Product Sale" and " Narcissus flowers". The composer organically combined the national opera melodies of the Guangdong province in pentatonic modes with the writing techniques characteristic of the representatives of the St. Petersburg "New Russian School" (especially N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, M. P. Mussorgsky) and its followers (A. K. Lyadov): variability, trichords, parallel-variable modes, plagal harmonies, smooth voice leading, melodization of voices, "singing" piano texture.

From Stage to Online: Reinvention of Cantonese Opera

Cantonese Opera has a history of more than 500 years. In recent decades, Cantonese Opera is seldom performed on the stage, but more appearing on TV, in movies, and on the Internet. Owing to the development of information technology, Cantonese Opera was reborn on the Internet, enriching its content and enlarging its influence. Using the Netnography method, the process from the decline of Cantonese Opera on the stage to the revival on the Internet was investigated. A series of data and cases were collected from Blibli and Youtube, and other main Internet platforms in China and the US. The findings showed that the forms of Cantonese Opera have become richer, and its content is not limited to the performance but extended to opera actors through vlogs and online apps and by sharing Cantonese singing skills. The characteristics of Cantonese Opera on the Internet were summarized and compared to those on the stages. The result showed that Cantonese Opera on the Internet has more room to extend its influence and attract young people to enjoy the traditional culture. With the 5G technology, artificial intelligence technology, and 3D technology, Cantonese Opera become to have a bigger opportunity to transmit to new platforms.

Research on the Application of New Media Technology in the Digital Inheritance of Cantonese Opera Art

Research on the Application of New Media Technology in the Digital Inheritance of Cantonese Opera Art