Guess Who Are They!

For those into Xiangju opera, make a guess who are they!

In the Mood for "Yuan Xiao"

It is the 15th day of the Lunar New Year tomorrow, and that marks the end of the Lunar New Year celebration for this year.

The 15th day of the Lunar New Year, known as "Yuan Xiao" in Chinese, can be said to be the ancient Chinese equivalent of Valentine's Day, because this is the time of the year whereby young unmarried women can get out of their homes to attend lantern fairs, to be seen by young unmarried men, and thereby increasing the chance of finding their perfect soulmate.

In Chinese opera, there is quite a number of well known romantic stories set during "Yuan Xiao", and one of which is the short excerpt "Watching the Lanterns" from the Liyuan opera show "The Legend of Chen San and Wu Niang". In conjunction with this festive occasion, I decided to sing this excerpt for all to hear. But I am not going to sing just one role, but all roles in this excerpt. Hence, you will hear me sing Chen San (the male lead), Wu Niang (the female lead), Yi Chun (the maid of the female lead) and Sister Li (the clownish matchmaker), and also double-up as the backup singers.

Of course, this is all done for the sake of entertainment, and please pardon me if my singing is not up to standard, but I have already tried my best!

Yueju Crossover - Again!

Well browsing the web randomly and came across this picture which made my eyes almost dropped out of their sockets.

Yes, it's a Yueju crossover act again. Nothing new already, I supposed, but then again, having Zhao Zhigang as Lin Daiyu and Qian Huili as Zi Juan just seems very weird!

Interesting Du Ma Diao Song

I'm not sure if I've blogged about this before or not, but very long ago, there was this Taiwanese singer by the name of Lin Jun that sang a very interesting song based on the melody of "Du Ma Diao" (one of the major melodies of Taiwanese opera). Recently I happened to chanced upon a MV (self-made one of course) of this song on Youtube, and hence I'm sharing with all the Taiwanese opera fans out there. Enjoy!

Red Mansion Blow Wind Blow

Lately I saw this clip on Tudou.com featuring old-time Yueju partners Qian Huili and Wang Zhiping singing arias from "Dreams of the Red Mansion". However, they did not reprise their respective roles as Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. For example, Wang Zhiping sang the role of Jia Baoyu and Jia Zheng, while Qian Huili sang the role of Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. How do you think they would fare? Watch on to find out!

Orchestral Nan Yin

Previously I have blogged about fusion of liyuan opera and western orchestra. Well, now nan yin had done the same thing.

Recently, Xiamen Jin Lian Sheng Gaojia Opera Troupe's Wu Jingjing and Li Li had teamed up with Xiamen's philharmonic orchestra and choir to put up an orchestral version of nan yin drama "Chen San and Wuniang". Well, strictly speaking it is not really nan yin drama, but gaojia opera being staged as a musical concert. So you see the orchestra playing in the background and the main characters playing in the foreground, each having almost equal amount of limelight on stage. Unfortunately I couldn't get hold of the video footage of the actual show, but here's a news clip of this event:

And here're the pictures of the actors in action. The costumes are nice!

Thai Drama, Chinese Opera Theme 2

Gee, now I'm spoilt for choices. So it appears there is another remake of "Saneh Nang Ngiew", although I suspect the storyline is not entirely the same, that is done by Channel 7.. a glimpse of it here: