Gongs and cymbals clang, sword fights break out, and the odd acrobat somersaults across the stage.ĭespite its popularity, the Sunbeam, which opened in 1972, faces a problem that plagues many independent arts groups in this expensive city: ballooning rent. Singers in hand-embroidered silk costumes play the characters of Chinese legend: emperors and warlords, wily bandits and maidens in distress. Its 400 annual shows are often sold out, mostly to middle-aged women who know the ancient art form’s stories by heart. Who would’ve thought traveling could be so cheap.HONG KONG - The Sunbeam Theatre, the last dedicated Cantonese opera house on Hong Kong Island, stands on a crammed neon-lighted corner, decorated with Christmas lights and posters of its elaborately made-up stars. So teleport your mind to China and snooze under the blossom trees, with the best Chinese opera music on Deezer. Green represents impulsive behavior, red means bravery, black represents boldness, pink is sophistication and yellow ambition. Exaggerated paints are used on the performers’ faces to express their emotions and each color has a different meaning, symbolizing a character’s role, fate and emotional state (if only we had this in politics!). Īnd it’s not just about the music, the costumes are as important to the opera as the stories themselves.

More than thirty forms of Chinese opera continue to be performed today including: Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, The Peony Pavilion and the Peach Blossom Fan. They took on a whole new dimension during China’s cultural revolution with ‘Hollywoodesque’ adaptations of Chinese opera targeted to the masses to promote proletarian ideology. Today, Chinese opera is rarely publicly staged, and even more rarely listened to, except for in official opera houses, whereas early forms of Chinese opera were often simple theater productions. Although it can, at times, sound unusual to western ears accustomed to bippity boppity pop songs, Chinese opera is really rather beautiful, the costumes and head pieces are stunning and the voice traditions are impressive. The Chinese costumed opera, dates back to the 3rd century CE. They’ve been singing about botany in their famous Chinese operas for thousands of years. It seems, however, that China didn’t wait for sponsored fashion influencers and social media to celebrate floral beauty. It’s peony season and boy, does Instagram know it.

Chinese opera singing style