A Love of Cantonese Opera and Preserving Chinese Culture
When LEUNG Fei-tung decided to become a professional Cantonese opera performer, she had no idea how much the beloved art form would influence her life
[Sponsored Article]
“I had an intuition that I had to do this.” Some refer to such a feeling as a calling, but for 26-year-old LEUNG Fei-tung, our Chinese and History alumni, Cantonese opera turned out to be everything she has ever wanted.
“I remember my dad turning on a TV channel that plays Cantonese opera every Sunday morning, and I would watch it with him. When I was in Primary 5, there was the return of Chor Fung Ming Cantonese Opera Troupe. The channel ran an interview and I watched it. There were some clips of the performance and it was very captivating,” Leung remembers. “It was a time when YouTube had just launched, and I began looking up Cantonese opera-related videos. From there on, I got more exposed to Cantonese opera. The more I watched it, the more interested I became. When I entered my fifth year of secondary school, I had the opportunity to kick off my education in Cantonese opera at The Cantonese Opera Academy of Hong Kong.”
From Leung’s very first day in a classroom of less than a dozen new students, her teachers immediately noticed her hardworking and passionate attitude towards her career goal. Leung says, “I just wanted to enjoy every moment I had in the class.”
Over the course of four years, every weekend, Leung learnt about every aspect of Cantonese opera-from acrobatics and choreography to costume and make-up, as well as the stories, and worked on her own interpretations and expressions for each performance. For further and specific study, Leung had later attended private classes accordingly. She studied posture and singing under WANG Huiling, CHOW Chun-bong and YANG Lihong, who are veterans in their field.
