The Characteristics of Cantonese Opera

Cantonese opera performers wear beautiful costumes, makeup and headdresses, interpret historical stories and folk legends on the antique-styled stage, and narrate the characters' personalities and fates. Every movement exudes the charm of Cantonese opera art.

Performance

Vocal Music: Cantonese opera is a multi-vocal-tune genre. Its main vocal style is called Banqiang. The different singing tunes include Gaoqiang, Bangzi and Kunqiang, among others. Gaoqiang is used in operas with high-tune melodies. Bangzi has a unique sound, usually accompanied by the wooden clappers and passionate. Kunqiang, commonly called "Kunqu melodies", mostly comes from the original Kunqu operas. The commonly used modes include the Shang mode, Jue mode, and Yu mode, all of which are pentatonic scales; the Gong mode is a heptatonic scale.

Dialogue: The initial language of Cantonese opera dialogue was the Zhongyuan Phonology, also known as the official language in the opera shed. It was not until the early years of the Republic of China that Cantonese truly became the basic language for performances. Cantonese opera dialogue can be divided into eight types according to whether it rhymes or not. The rhyming ones include poetic dialogue, Kougu, Bailan and rhymed dialogue, while the non-rhyming ones are spoken dialogue, gong and drum dialogue, Yinzi dialogue and Langlibai.

Martial Arts: Introducing Shaolin martial arts, which are highly practical and combative, onto the Cantonese opera stage for performance was a characteristic of early Cantonese opera. Incorporating practical martial arts skills into the opera is relatively rare in other local operas. Compared with the northern-style martial arts skills represented by Peking Opera, which pay more attention to showing the beauty of gestures, the martial arts skills in traditional Cantonese opera are customarily called southern-style martial arts skills. This is an important feature of the performing arts of Cantonese opera.

Roles: Cantonese opera originally had ten role types, namely Mo, Sheng, Dan, Jing, Chou, Wai, Xiaofu, Tie and Za. Later, it was streamlined into six categories: Wenwusheng (civil and military male lead), Xiaosheng (young male lead), Zhengyinhua Dan (leading female lead), Erbanghua Dan (secondary female lead), Chousheng (clown male lead) and Wusheng (martial male lead).

Costumes

The costumes of Cantonese Opera have their own unique style. The costumes for both male and female roles were long gowns with upright collars embroidered in the Guangdong style, wide cuffs and medium-length sleeves. This kind of attire was similar to the clothing in daily-life-themed plays at that time. When performing on stage, it was loose and unrestrained. The distinctive feature of Cantonese opera costumes lies in the "Guangdong embroidery" craftsmanship. Its composition is full, the patterns are elaborate, the designs are vivid, the decorative nature is strong, the colors are rich and bright, which is in harmony with the warm, lively, and distinct Lingnan regional cultural characteristics that permeate the Cantonese opera stage.

Facial Makeup

Cantonese Opera: Facial Makeup

In Cantonese opera, the facial makeup of actors is customarily referred to as "zhuāngshēn" (body makeup). It includes the makeup for various performing roles, as well as "kāimiàn" (painting the face for certain roles) and facial masks. Cantonese opera makeup is colorful, with rich and vivid colors. It coordinates with exquisite costumes with beautiful Guangdong embroidery, which are exquisite, gorgeous, and full of strong local characteristics.

Hair Ornament

Cantonese Opera: Hair Ornament

The materials for Cantonese opera hair decorations are diverse, having iron wire, copper wire, gold wire, sequins and so on. The design of head ornaments need to be configured according to the character in different dynasties and plays and the proportion of the actor's height and weight. The colors of the head ornaments are chosen according to the Cantonese Opera roles and costumes, with soft and bright colors as the main tone. Cantonese opera head ornaments are handmade. Usually, Making a Cantonese Opera head ornament is complex; it needs to use more than a dozen or even dozens of raw materials.

• The Characteristics of Cantonese Opera
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• The Most Popular Stories of Cantonese Opera
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