Sunday, October 11, 2009

Teochew Opera



It's Saturday and as usual, we was hovering around town to find some object, events or whatever to snap. As we pass by the indian street, it was quite happening as Deepavali was round the corner. As we find a parking at the busy street, we walked along to a stage performance but it soon start to drizzle. I was thinking... "Oh no... It's raining again". We rushed back to the car and in need to find something else to snap hehe... Passing by Pengkalan Weld had caught Kelvin's eyes where there is a opera performance at a roadside temple. We stopped by and went straight to enjoy the performance.

I'm half a teochew and listening to the performance sort of felt familiar. Everything was colourful, bright, loud as well as entertaining. As the high technology advancing, so did opera performance. With it's LED subtitle in chinese, the performance sort of make sense to me, although it's difficult to understand without the subtitle. Teochew opera known as 潮州京剧 in chinese. The story performed that night was 程咬金娶妻 which meant a king's journey to find his bride. The story was summarized as the king was finding a bride and his treasurer had introduced him to a warrior's daughter. The warrior's daughter was unaware about the marriage and felt betrayed when they meet up during their wedding night. Of course from the past, the girl normally don't know her husband until the night of the wedding. The girl had some resistance and wanted to leave but the king tried to reasoned with her and proposed that she is allowed to test him. If he passes then she will have to accept the marriage. They start to test their vocabulary skills on poems and the king failed miserably as he is not so educated himself. Hehe... He tried to justify the unfairness and the girl gave him another chance on 1 on 1 sword fighting. Later the girl sort of bonded with the king and she finally accepts the marriage. Happy ending. ^_^ Enjoy the photos. Click for bigger view and more in my flickr. Fully promote kelvin's pic using wide angle and 50mm. He captured a different feeling to the performance.

The Actors & Actresses











Some scenes








Props & Musicians






2 comments:

kelvin-tan said...

ur post finally up!
now i only know the story in this performance. like ur 1st pic. :-D

Valerie said...

Hehe... you dun understand Teochew and the LED display was kind of fast though. I just get parts and pieces then join the rest my own. Maybe not so accurate one. I also like the first one a lot. :)

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