For the first time in Taiwan's history, a nearly three-month-long festival devoted to the art of Taiwanese opera has been launched, last month at the National Center for Traditional Arts (國立傳統藝術中心), in Ilan County (宜蘭縣).
Sponsored by Uni-President Yi-Lan Art and Culture Corp (
The main purpose of the festival is to present the history of Taiwanese opera since its inception in Ilan in the early 1900s.
PHOTOS: DEREK LEE, TAIPEI TIMES
Opera started out as a means of outdoor entertainment for Taiwanese farmers and villagers and a way to worship gods on their birthdays. During the 1920s, the Japanese colonial government imposed strict restrictions on opera performances and forced the troupes to sing and act inside theater houses, so the the public could be controlled better.
Some of the well-known troupes were invited to perform in southern Fujianese cities, where people spoke the same Min-dialect.
From 1949 to 1956, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) took over control of Taiwan the number of registered Taiwanese Opera troupes was more than 500.
As radios, records and film impacted unfavorably on the opera business, the troupes learned to adapt and record their performances.
In the 1960s, however, the opera business was at a low and the number of opera troupes was reduced to about 100. This lasted until the 1970s when TV stations started to organize their own troupes and stage broadcasts of Taiwanese opera.
Many big-name stars such as Liao Qiong-zhi (
As to the content, there have also been changes. Previously, the stories were based on historical and folk legends. Nowadays, opera tries to address modern issues, such as national identity, judicial problems and bilateral relations between Taiwan and China.
Modern-content operas such as Taiwan, My Mother (2000) (台灣我的母親), A Case of a Court Judge (1991, 曲判記), Flower on the Other Side of the Bank (2001, 彼岸花), seem to have caught a new wave of popularity and have created another golden era for Taiwanese opera.
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