April 25, 2009

看戲 Familiar opera titles

It was Thursday evening. Sheng Hong Temple was a hive of activities. Besides temple devotees and opera fans there was a big group learning Tai Chi at the courtyard and a small group, mainly women, learning Erhu at the third level premises.

The opera excerpts for the night :


酬神戏
十八相送
訪鼠
沈園絕唱
斬經堂
???

Hello Cantonese opera fans, these are very familiar titles. You have watched them before - in Cantonese, right? But these are also xiang opera, performed in Hokkien. The music and singing are not the same. But, besides some variations, whether Cantonese or Hokkien, they belong to the same stories. It seems the Cantonese versions are longer.

The fourth one is not about the scholar revisiting the Park as an old man. It is the excerpt in which the scholar wrote his famous poem on the wall in the Park.

In the fifth excerpt, when the actor saw that his wife has committed suicide, he jumped up into the air and landed on his knees. I mentioned about this stunt before in a post 2 or 3 years ago. I said the action was dangerous, but A.C. said it was safe because the artistes were all well-trained.


There was one more excerpt but I couldn't catch its title. I asked a lady beside me; she also didn't know. Later I found some pictures of it in Shanice's blog. Below is one of them. The excerpt is from the opera
乞丐与状元.

3 comments:

Cantonese Opera Panorama said...

Frannxis
The Marine Parade friends asked me help them publicise their coming 16,17 May performance. I am hoping you can also publicise their event in your blog. Just copy from my blog: cantonoperaspore.blogspot.com. to post the poster onto your blog. Thank you. Hongxi
新加坡黄妃主持马林百列粤曲艺组

amai said...

The excerpt is known as 乞丐與狀元之妯娌教子

fr said...

Thanks, Amai.

COP: OK, no problems. I'll post one here later. Actually I already got one at
http://www.operaperformance.blogspot.com/