Cantonese Opera (Yueju)

Cantonese opera took shape across the Guangzhou region over the Ming and Qing eras, blending older operatic vocal styles with local Cantonese music and dialect. It matured into a distinct form sung in Cantonese, beloved across Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities.

It combines singing, acting, recitation and stagecraft, with role types such as the male sheng, female dan, painted-face jing and comic chou. Its melodies draw on bangzi and erhuang modes, accompanied by both Chinese and adopted Western instruments, with lavish costumes and stylized southern martial movement.

Cantonese opera is national-level intangible cultural heritage and was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009 — the most emblematic stage art of Lingnan culture.

In Guangzhou you can experience its singing and stagecraft at a dedicated Cantonese-opera museum and at the garden stages and traditional theatres of the Liwan district.