Local Canto-opera group open to new-old hybrid

The executive producer of a Cantonese opera in this year’s Macao Arts Festival is open-minded about introducing modern elements to the traditional artform.

Yesterday, the production team of “Bonds of Hato,” a Cantonese opera to be presented at the upcoming arts festival, met the press.

Executive producer and lead actor Chu Chan Wa said his group, Zheng Hua Sing Cantonese Opera Association, has always been open to performing Cantonese opera in a modernized form.

However, he rejected a complete break from tradition. Instead, he said tradition should be partially retained because it is the foundation for progress and development.

For example, this opera is set in modern times, although performed with the traditional singing methods that are part of the artform.

This opera will not be limited to music played on Chinese instruments.

“We have included an electronic keyboard, violin and saxophone in the band for this opera,” Chu said.

Recalling his thoughts when he first read the script, the opera’s director, Cheng Wei Guo, said his old feelings of anxiety, panic, excitement and warmth resurfaced.

“Typhoon Hato caused severe destruction to Macau in 2017 but, it was also in this disaster people showed their complete mutual support and care for one another and the army and local residents worked in solidarity,” Cheng said.

Cheng said he was not in Macau but in Shenzhen for work when the typhoon hit Macau. Preparing for the opera, Chu took Cheng to the city’s severely affected locations and recounted the situation as it then was.

A veteran Cantonese opera worker, Cheng has experience working with opera companies around the Greater Bay Area (GBA).

Commenting on this production, he said that despite being part-timers, Macau performers and support workers respect their tasks very much. They work diligently, hoping to present a good work to the audience.

Actress Mok Weng Lam, 25, is one of the youngest in the crew. She started her Cantonese opera “career” aged five. Revealing her family mistakenly believed Cantonese opera is for older people, she said she had never thought the same.

She began learning Cantonese opera in her friends’ company, saying many younger people like the artform.

The six-act Cantonese opera is based on a true major event and set on Aug. 23, 2017 and the days that followed, when Typhoon Hato hit Macau, claiming the lives of 10 people.

The opera’s story begins with police officer Ho Wa and nurse Lai Sio Ha, who are in love. They are on duty and unable to see each other during the typhoon, which leads to Sio Ha’s misunderstanding that Wa is in love with another woman. Conflict gradually arises between the two. In a rescue operation, however, Wa explains the truth to Sio Ha while he is trapped in a lift, and they confide their feelings for each other and reconcile.