Notes on Cantonese Opera in North America

NOTES ON CANTONESE OPERA IN NORTHAMERICA by Chun-kin Leung: University of Toronto Performances of Cantonese opera in North America can be found in several large cities like New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. They are of two kinds: those presented by professional travelling troupes from Hong Kong which perform once or twice a year; and those given by local Cantonese opera and music clubs of amateurs which rehearse all through the year and give occasional public performances. The former are special events which attract audiences of thousands. My report is on the latter, more modest type with examples taken from Toronto. One of the Cantonese opera and music clubs in Toronto is the Yue Hai Cantonese Music Club _iJ ;,4}-{ ~ ;/'-.±. , which was established on the 14th of September, 1963 in Toronto's Chinatown. The club has a main hall, a secretary's room and storerooms for costumes and stage properties. A "stage" of about one hundred sq. ft. is set in the main hall. It is more a low platform than a stage, because it is only about four inches off the floor. Around the "stage", there are tables and chairs for the members and audience to , dedicated to the two sit on. A spirit tablet 1 ancestors of actors, is or shen wei ;/-f,-j;';:_ set up at the end of the hall; by the side of the tablet there is a v - / photograph of one of the deceased founders of the club, Xiao Kun Lun ) J, J,, I ,. tt:.~ The financing of the club is very old fashioned. There is mahjong playing all through the week, and the club takes a commission from gambling - v ( ~ shui fJ, ~z.). Some members feel that this is not an appropriate way of solving the financial problem, but until some other financial source such as a government grant is approved, the club has to be maintained in this way. Other financial sources are the income from the annual open performances and donations from 9 10 the Chinese community. The core of the organization is the panel of teachers which is composed of eight or ten experienced musicians with an average age of about fifty 2 • The teachers all had been professional musicians in one or more Cantonese opera troupes in Canton or Hong Kong when they were younger. They can perform on several different kinds of musical instruments and can teach new members singing and acting. The life-story of one of the founders of the club, He Xing-hua /iaj" ,M.t ' as he told it to me is probably quite typical, and illustrates some of the changes that took place in Cantonese He / V / opera in the past half century. Xing-hua was born in 1912 in an actor's family in Canton. - ' .,_,_ His father was a hua-dan ~-t.., j'._ or ✓ player of young female parts whose stage name was Xi-shi-ling ,10 ;oltiJ~ • As the eldest son of the family, when He'was sixteen, he decided to follow in his father's footsteps. In the 1920's, many large Cantonese opera troupes were still in existence. Almost every troupe had a specific number of actors of each role type or ji;,:o-se 1 ~ ~ totalling some sixty persons 3• If to these are added the fifteen to twenty musicians, the ban-zhu J/f._i_ or boss and his assistants, the playwright, and the other backstage workers, the total number of a troupe was more or less a hundred. A troupe might be either all male or all female, never mixed. Almost every troupe had an office in Canton to plan the programs and the schedule of performances. Owing to the special geographic environment of the Pearl River Delta, a troupe travelled fro111 one place the "red boat" to another¼, a.,1. '" 1- ," ,::z.• on a large steamboat painted red, called The "red boat" was used for lodging as well as transportation. Mr. He thinks that was why a troupe must be either male or female. Formal theatres for Cantonese opera performance could only / / be found in larger cities like Canton, Shi-qi J,; Jl , Macao and Hong Kong. When...