།
T
Music
to Gelebrate
Chinese opera is one of the most popular forms of traditional entertainment in Hong Kong, there being about 500 professional performers and countless amateurs. No celebration is complete without an opera. In villages and in the city, performances are given in halls, theatres, and in the streets or in matshed theatres during re- ligious and other festivals. The opera is a special feature of the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival and it was included in the first Festival of Asian Arts presented by the Urban Council in 1976. There are three main branches of traditional Chinese opera performed in Hong Kong-the Peking, Cantonese and Chiu Chow opera. Each owes a debt to Chinese classical drama, having similar mixtures of singing, speech, mime, acrobatics and dancing. Peking opera has a rich and refined style and it is highly developed technically, while Cantonese opera is less formal and nowadays includes modern and foreign elements. Chiu Chow opera is virtually the same as it was in the Ming Dynasty, in- corporating the folklore and legends of the Chiu Chow people. Productions in all three groups are magnificently dressed, with Hong Kong's professional performers investing large sums of money in their
own costumes.
Previous page: A performer applies his stylised make-up in readiness for an evening of Cantonese opera at the City Hall. Left: Scenes from 'The First Encounter', which follows a popular theme in Cantonese opera-love at first sight.