On July 21-23, tickets for the Hong Kong Kwai Tsing Theatre were sold out and the audience attended the performances with great enthusiasm.

At the invitation of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Chen Meilan’s new repertoire team from the Zhejiang Wu Opera Art Research Institute brought excerpts of the major traditional plays for the enjoyment of the local public.

This was the seventh time that the Zhejiang Wu Opera Troupe has been invited to Hong Kong, and it was also their third time performing at the Hong Kong Chinese Opera Festival. This shows the great interest of Hong Kong in Wu Opera.

The performance of July 21 saw the presence of cultural personalities of Hong Kong, like Vincent Liu Ming-kwong, director of Leisure and Cultural Services; Elizabeth "Liza" Wang Ming-chun, actress and host; and Law Kar-ying, Hong Kong Cantonese opera singer and actor. The VIP audience members enjoyed and particularly praised the performances from “The Legend of the White Snake.” Liza Wang explained this was not the first time she had watched Wu Opera performances and declared, “It’s amazing! I hope Wu Opera can perform in Hong Kong every year.”

Yao Jianzhong moved to Hong Kong from Shanghai over 60 years ago. He and his wife bought tickets for the three performances more than a month ago. He explained that Hong Kong’s multiculturalism provides him with the opportunity to watch good shows from all over the world, “but Zhejiang Wu Opera is the highest level of opera performance I have ever seen in my life.”

Deng Huishu, 26 years old, became passionate for Wu Opera after watching a performance for the first time in Guangzhou eight years ago. She has been looking forward to watching Wu Opera live again. “This time Wu Opera was performed in Hong Kong, which made my dream come true,” Deng Huishu explained, saying that she snatched up tickets for the three performances as soon as they became available. During the three-day performances, the theater effect far exceeded her expectations. “The Zhejiang Wu Opera Art Research Institute’s actors are so young and not only do they sing well, but their martial arts are also superb.”

Bu Siao-lung, arts advisor of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, explained that the Hong Kong Chinese Opera Festival has been held 11 times and usually invites eight outstanding troupes from all over the country to perform in Hong Kong every year. “The  Zhejiang Wu Opera Troupe is good and the audience likes it, so we have invited them to participate three times so far, and we will invite them again next year.”

He Ziyuan, director of the Singapore Chinatown People’s Theater Foundation and Secretary of the Working Committee, came from Singapore to watch the performances of Wu Opera. He has also visited and enjoyed these performances in Jinhua and has invited the Zhejiang Wu Opera Troupe to perform in Singapore many times. In fact, Mrs. He is very fond of Zhejiang Wu Opera Troupe’s actors. After a pause from watching Wu Opera live due to the pandemic, she noticed that the actors she was familiar with had further improved their acting skills. She was also very positively surprised by the fact that a new generation of young actors came on stage to perform.

Hong Kong opera fans told us that they have a group of hundreds of people who want to visit China Wu Opera Grand Theatre in Jinhua to watch a special performance of Wu Opera.

The enthusiasm of the Hong Kong audience had been ignited long before the Zhejiang Wu Opera Troupe arrived in Hong Kong. Tickets for the three performances ranging from 160-380 HK$ were sold out, and many spectators came from Singapore, Malaysia, Macau, Taiwan, and other places to feast their eyes.

Before the performance, Wu Opera fans in Hong Kong specially made beautiful banners, and some fans placed flower baskets in the theater hall to wish the performers success.

Each performance saw the presence of an enthusiastic and curious audience, especially on July 23: as the last excerpt “Battle Between Song and Liao Dynasties” came to an end, the enthusiasm of the audience was like a heat wave in July.

To meet the desire of the audience, who wanted to stay in the theater longer and take pictures, some of the troupe’s actors walked around the theater hall in costume to chat with fans and take pictures with them.

When the bus of the troupe drove away from the theater, there were fans at the gate to see off the actors with a banner: "Zhejiang Wu Opera Art Research Institute, looking forward to see you again and more often.” (Text by Xia Binting, photo by Zhang Hui, English text edited by Kendra Fiddler)