Yue Opera

The province which has the longest coastline in China must be Guangdong Province. The coastline more than 3000 kilometers long links Guangdong Province with the other places of the world, and the Cantonese traveling across oceans in search of a living stored the memory of their hometown in the opera and brought it to all over the world. Whenever they get homesick, they will sing a hometown ditty, or simply go to see a local opera performance. This local opera is Cantonese Opera (越剧)!

In China, each province has its own abbreviation, for example, "E" is for Hubei Province, and "Chuan" is for Sichuan. The abbreviation of Guangdong Province is "Yue", so "Yue Opera (越剧)" is the local opera in Guangdong areas of China, which is sung in Cantonese.

If we say that the seawater links the lands, then Cantonese Opera links the Chinese in the world. Cantonese Opera is popular in the overseas Chinatowns as much as the Hollywood movies are popular in the United States. Whenever there is a Cantonese Opera performance, the whole block of Chinese will go to watch, and it is very bustling. Even by now, Cantonese Opera will be presented in the Chinatown on important festivals. Cantonese Opera is even more popular in Guangdong. In 2012，the mayor of Guangzhou sang Cantonese Opera to the citizens for the first time on stage, and set a precedent. The mayor's personal performance, regardless of how well he plays, his well placed eye expressions and swinging sleeves can not but touch people's hearts. 

A Brief Introduction to Cantonese Opera

Cantonese Opera is a genre which is formed on the basis of change to the Chinese traditional theatric opera. It has been over three hundred years from its development to its official formation. It first emerged as early as in Jiajing's reign of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, some wandering artisans from the north, who took shelters in Guangdong, set up the theatric stage on the huge ships and maintained a living by singing the opera in the big cities along the coast of Guangdong Province.

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was changed to sing in Cantonese dialect. At that time, China was at the political unrest, and in the country appeared many revolutionary party members who wanted to overthrow the feudal ruling. 

The revolutionary party members saw that the ordinary people would 丨ike to watch Cantonese Opera, so they applied Cantonese Opera to publicize the revolution. In order to let the opera more, popular，Cantonese Opera was sung completely in Guangdong dialect. Since then, the Cantonese has been used to sing Cantonese Opera.

In the 1930s, the Cantonese took the geographic advantage of being close to the sea, and developed the economy around the world, intentionally or unintentionally disseminating Cantonese Opera and forming the scene "where there are Chinese, there is Cantonese Opera".

Around the 1940s, Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Singapore had been the main places for the Cantonese Opera activities. Of many places where Cantonese Opera disseminated, the Cantonese Opera’s development in Hong Kong was most amazing. At every corner of Hong Kong, Cantonese Opera appeared in songs, movies and various occasions. For example, later the lyrics of the most classic pop songSJjangAa/ Beach in Hong Kong are mainly phrases of two or three simple words, such as "Waves run, waves flow", which is deeply influenced by Cantonese Opera. 

The classic repertoires of the Cantonese Opera are mostly associated with love between men and women, either quarreling, bickering or being distressed at parting. For example, the most classic Tang Bohu Falls in Love with Qiuxiang and The Story of Purple Hairpin are both adapted from the story which happened in ancient China between the gifted scholars and the beautiful ladies.

Cantonese Opera has quite a number of excellent repertoires with the same characteristics. Their style is rustic, exciting, and tense, and their language is rough but does not lose the true affection.

 The manifestation of passionate feelings lets the Cantonese Opera have both the tune to express deep and meaningful emotions and the duet with the fierce conflict and the strong rhythm between a man and a woman. Its rhythm is changeable and melodious.

The lyrics of Cantonese Opera are long and short alternately and are mostly short sounds, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, unique and interesting, for example, a section in The Passionate Monk Secretly Goes to Xiaoxiang House: "The jade pendant sounds tinkling, and the shadow of your body goes forth and comes back. I am not used to lovesickness, and the marriage should not have to idle away the time. Looking afar at this side, I find that you are delicate and graceful and walk swiftly through the curved road. What a long night." This section shows the feelings of the male protagonist as a monk, who tries to restrain but hardly depresses his mood for love between man and woman. In order to express depressions in his heart, he can only sigh deeply watching from afar at the back of the beauty.

In the performances of Cantonese Opera, the actor holds and releases his singing, sometimes stops, and sometimes pauses. He stops and pauses, pauses, and stops his singing. It sounds particularly charming as if the sound goes into the ears of the audiences, nestling up to the human brain and slowly climbing up as iron out clothes docilely. The audiences sit down the stages in Guangdong major theatres, drinking green tea and crossing their legs, and leisurely listen to the soft voice and slow singing on the stage. The comfortable thing in life is nothing more than this.