ABSTRACT
Cantonese opera is a regional genre within the Chinese opera genus that comprises 348 regional styles. 1 Before 1949, the year the People’s Republic of China was established, it was the most popular form of performing entertainment among the pan-Cantonese population spreading over the areas encompassing the Pearl River Delta, Guangzhou (formerly Canton), Macau (the Portuguese colony until 1999), Hong Kong, and part of Guangxi Province. Since then, Cantonese opera in Guangzhou has been tied to the political ebbs and flows of the Mainland, and its counterpart in Macau has declined despite it having had a short-lived boom during WWII. In Hong Kong, the Crown Colony until July 1997, the genre has been flourishing since the five years or so preceding the handover of its sovereignty to China. All in all, though ploughing through different paths in the three cities, the overall development of Cantonese opera has been shaped by cultural and political forces.
