How a group of octogenarian opera singers tried to sustain their passion and a loyal community of opera lovers in a southern Chinese city
In December 2021, I watched an online documentary that a college sophomore named Qin Zijing had shot about a group of elders from the Wenyuan Guicai Opera Troupe (文苑桂彩剧团). Here, “Guicai” stands for two traditional genres of opera local to the Guangxi region—Gui Opera (桂剧) and Caidiao (彩调). The former is an exquisite craft relying on delicate facial expressions and body posture to convey a wide range of emotions. Caidiao was originally performed in pairs of the opposite gender. Later, it bloomed into a performance format featuring multiple actors onstage.
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