Foshan is the origin of Cantonese Opera. At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, the Cantonese Opera was very prosperous in Foshan, where there was the ¡°Qionghua Assembly Hall¡±. Of all ages, a lot of famous persons and good operas came out of Foshan.
The Cantonese Opera is popular in Guangdong, south of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Hong Kong and Macao etc. In some places in Southeast Asia and Australia and America where there are overseas Chinese from Guangdong, the Cantonese Opera is also popular. In Southeast Asia there are artists of generations, fixed society, trade association and traditional performance places, such as ¡°Qing Wei Xin¡± in Singapore, ¡°Pu Chang Chun¡± in Kuala Lumpur, where many famous Cantonese Opera actors and actresses have been trained.
At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, Yiyang Tune and Kunshan Tune were introduced into Guangdong by ¡°Other Group¡±, and then there appeared Guangdong ¡°Local Group¡±, with the tune called ¡°Guang Tune¡±. Later, in the theatrical performances of ¡°Prime Minister of Six States¡±, ¡°Xianji Sending Son¡± and ¡°Eight Immotals Congratulating Birthday¡±, this tune was maintained. In Jiaqing and Daoguang periods of Qing Dynasty, the Gao Tune and Kun Tune gradually declined, then the ¡°Local Group¡± used the bangzi operas (referring to the tune near to the Han Tune Xipi and Qiyang Opera ¡°Beilu¡±) as the main tune. Later the Hui Group became increasingly important, and the ¡°Banghuang¡±(namely Xipi and Erhuang) as the basic tune. At the same time, partial Kun Tune, Yi Tune, Guang Tune and the Guangdong folk operas and tunes were absorbed, which finally resulted in Cantonese Opera. During the 1911 Revolution period, some patriotic artists, under influence of new operas of Chunliu Society (commonly called Civilized Opera), one after another organized ¡°Integrity Person Group¡±, who together with the workers and students conducted propaganda against Qing Dynasty, feudalism and imperialism, and created and performed operas like ¡°Wen Tianxiang Died the Country¡±. The words were simple and easy to understand, and the folk music was inserted into the ¡°Banghuang¡± Tune, and the falsetto was changed to ¡°real voice¡±. After repeated practice, all the words were performed in Guangzhou dialect. Around 1920, many Cantonese Opera maters performed in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao, who were commonly called ¡°GD-HK Master¡±. They absorbed the partial artistic essence from drama, opera and film to enrich their own techniques. After establishment of the People¡¯s Republic of China, the infuence of capitalist commercialization was gradually eradicated, and the excellent tradtion was actively excavated and inherited. Meanwhile, the overall reformation has also been conducted in the artistic form, which has resulted in many excellent operas and a group of new artists.
As to the traditional Cantonese Operas, in the early times, there was ¡°Yi Peng Xue¡±. After 1868, there appeared ¡°Huang Hua Shan¡±; In the middl eof Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, there appeared ¡°Shi Lin Ji Ta¡± etc. During the ¡°GD-HK¡± period, there appeared ¡°Ze Wang Zi¡±. Some influential operas include ¡°Pingui Bie Yao¡±, ¡°Fengyi Pavillion¡±, ¡°Zhao Zilong Urging Return¡±, ¡°Lotus Lantern¡±, ¡°West River Meeting¡±, ¡°Luo Cheng Letter¡± and modern opera of ¡°Changes in the Mountain Village¡±. Some operas have been made into films, such as ¡°Searching Academy¡± and ¡°Guan Hanqing¡± etc.
The basic tune of Cantonese Opera is ¡°Banghuang¡±, which also retains partial tune names of Yiyang Tune and Kun Tune as well as Guangdong folk tunes like Nanyin, Yueou, Muyu, Longzhou and Banyan etc, plus the folk songs, musics, modern songs and canzonets. The roles of the Cantonese Opera originally included 10 roles, namely Mo, Sheng, Dan, Jing, Chou, Wai, Xiao, Fu, Tian and Za, which were reduced to ¡°Six Pillars¡±, namely Wenwusheng, Xiaosheng, Zhengyinhuadan, Erbanghuadan, Chousheng, and Wusheng.
The performance arts of Guangodng Opera maintain the bold and simple features of the early ¡°Guoshan Group¡±. Many famous actors and actresses had the unique skills of single foot, somersault, stropping, stepping silts, moving eyes, throwing hair and artificial whiskers. The acrobatic fighting is based on ¡°Southern Wushu¡±, including strong target, Hand Bridge, Shaolin Boxing and extremely difficult chair skill and high platform skill. The famous actors included Erhualian Li Wenmao, who jointed Taiping Heavenly Kingdom uprise and called himself Pingjing King after establishment of ¡°Dacheng State¡±, Kuang Xinhua, who established Cantonese Opera Trade Association ¡°Bahe Society¡±. The period from 20s~ 40s of the 20th century was called ¡°Xue-Ma Competition¡± Period, when the Wenwusheng Xue Juesian and Chousheng Ma Shizeng had contributed much to reformation of Cantonese Opera. They two as well as Xiaosheng Bai Jurong and Xiaowu Gui Mingyang were called ¡°Four Masters¡± or ¡°Five Schools¡± (plus Liao Huaixia, who performed Chou role). After mixing group of male and female, the Shanghai Girl created the special singing method for female role in Cantonese Opera, which is represented by Hong Xian Nu. Meanwhile, Luo Pingchao, Wen Juefei and Chen Xiaofeng from Guangzhou and Xin Ma Shizeng, He Feifan and Lin Jiasheng from Hong Kong all have their own advantages, influential in the Cantonese Opera.