Me, Myself & Opera

Yah, so fast got next performance notice already right? I am printing the tickets and doing the poster now already. 唐伯虎点秋香 Date: 29 April 2006 Venue: Tampines East CC Time: 7:00pm Ticket: $15 $10 This time, we are inviting Ying ying and Susan to help us out. Ying ying will most likely be doing Qiu Xiang but I am not confirmed which role Susan is doing. I am happy that Susan is joining us. Hee hee.. I like acting with her. This is a new show but we only have less than 2 months to cook it up but I think it should be ok cuz Yingying don't need to practice and the rest of us with minor roles should be able to cope... ba...

Just now, after a good shower, I started singing Pekin Opera "Si Lang Tan Mu" for fun. I was walking in and out of the kitchen, hanging clothes and putting away the dirty clothes. My father was in the living room watching TV with my mother. I came into the living room and stood in front of my father to finish the last line.. "再把礼见......" He turned to my mum and said,"Please give me 6 panadols." Then he turned to me," You give me headaches." Me, singing,"驸马~ 尊一声驸马爷细听咱言....." Hahaha.. Then he said,"你的声音很刺耳咧！“ Me," You don't think it's very nice meh? I think I sing better than last time leh, you don't feel so?" Father,"Not at all..." Me,"You don't know how to listen la.. I sing again you listen carefully... 听他言吓得我浑身是汗..." Father,"I want to move house." Then mum started saying that Richard missed a lot of lessons and he will probably fumble at his role. His role is quite difficult...

The marathon continues.... 打城戏 This opera form originates from Fujian, Quanzhou area. It is quite unknown until Uncle Lim told me about it. I saw in a website that Dacheng xi is good at fighting shows. Wooo... 白剧 Bai Ju is popular at the Yunan area. Their costumes look different. I never seen this opera type before. 川剧 Strangely, I didn't find any proper Chuan Ju photos. All I found is this famous show, Jinzi. Chuan Ju originates from Si Chuan. I just mentioned somewhere that Chuan Ju is the king of special effects and stunts. Really... 桂剧 I often see this name GuiJu floating around but I have never seen it before. The above picture looks so much like Pekin Opera. This show is 'Mai Shui'. I want to learn this show very much. 汉剧 CS always mention Hanju to me but I don't know what it is. I just found out from the web that this opera type is popular in many areas. Even in Fujian. Strangely, I never got to see it before. 雷剧 LeiJu is from the canton area. It is popular only ...

Yippie! I bought the Vcds for the CCTV opera night and I finished 3 vcds in one night. Almost died.. :P Overall, I think the show is better than the one in 2005. It has more variety or opera and more interesting stuff like xiang sheng etc. The show started off with a song as in the picture above. The singers sang the song with the voice of their own Hang Dang. The bald ones are normall Jing actors. hee hee.. The show then went on with some singing parts of different opera types. I quite like that part as it was an eye opener to see other rare opera types. Also, several opera types made changes to their looks but I felt that some opera types uses very ugly wigs. I don't know it it is one of their trademarks to use such a wig but the wig is really ugly: Anyway, I love the new look of the cantonese opera. I think I have already posted that photo in my blog before. I got a deep impression of another show. That is the singing of the Tan family. The grandfather, father and son sing toget...

~Performance Notice~ 倩女幽魂 Date: 04 March 200 6 Time: 7pm Venue: Joo Chiat CC Tickets: $15 $10 Date: 11 March 2006 Time: 7pm Venue: Tampines ChangKat CC Tickets: $15 $10

Continued from the previous Opera List 1, I will continue to list some of the opera I have found. I remember that there was a period of time when I tried to know more about the other opera types and realised that there are some weird ones. Here I will list the weird ones first. 肩膀戏 This opera type is very weird and is basically performed by kids around the age of 5-9 years old only. The kids will perform while standing on the shoulders of an adult and thus the name Jian Bang Xi. The adult below must coordinate very well with the kid above as the kid sings or speak. This JianBang Xi is only available in FuJian Shaxian. I think the purpose of standing on the shoulders is to let people far away see them. It is interesting! right? I hope to have a chance to see it as I want to know how the kid and the adult below can co-ordinate perfectly. Another Photo of it. Cute Right? Now we go on to Zhu Ma Xi. 竹马戏 Another strange opera type, performed on these fake horses. This opera type has a long h...

I once said before that I want to blog about the different looks created by different opera types but I was unable to do it because I didn't get the pictures I wanted. Today, I am going to try to find as many kinds of opera as possible and put their pictures here. If you know anyopera that I did not list, please leave comments. Hee hee.. heard that there are more than 300 kinds of opera yo! Anyway, a picture speaks more than a thousand words. I will let the pictures do the talking. The pictures I am using here are based on the traditonal looks of the opera type. Of course we must start off with Jing Ju as it is the national opera. 京剧 Most of the Jingju performances are still using the traditional make up and hairdo. Mei Lan Fang did invented some other looks called, Gu Zhuang 古装. Gu Zhuang is now the traditional look of 《天女散花》。 The make up still remains at using the red, white and black style, hairstyle remains at using Da Tou most of the time. Then we have my dearest Kunqu. 昆曲 Kun...