How old is Cantonese opera?

More than 500 years.

It began to appear in Guangdong and Guangxi during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. It is a performing art that combines singing, reciting, playing, musician's music, stage costumes and abstract forms.

During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, Guangzhou's "Tuyou" sang "Guangqiang" in their performances. By the Qianlong period, the local class artists in Foshan Town, Dajiwei established a fellow organization Qionghua Hall. Between the Qianlong and Daoguang periods, hundreds of foreign opera groups from other provinces entered Guangdong and set up the Guangdong Foreign Pear Garden Association in Guangzhou. The local opera groups drew their artistic nourishment of voice and performance from the foreign opera groups, and gradually formed the performance style of singing the clapper style.

Expanded Information:

In 1984, Guangdong Cantonese Opera made its debut on the CCTV stage, with Cantonese Opera artists Ding Fan and Lin Jinping singing Hometown Walk and Fishing Song of the South China Sea.In 1985, Guangdong Cantonese Opera once again made its debut on the stage of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, with Cantonese Opera artist Hong Linnu singing The Market of Flowers and Spring of the Flower City, which brought the charm of Guangzhou to the nation's viewers.

The 2019 CCTV Spring Festival Gala's opera program, "The Embroidered Pear Garden," takes Peking Opera as its leading role, and four local operas, including Yu Opera, Yue Opera, Huangmei Opera and Cantonese Opera, as its backbone, supported by first-rate celebrities and outstanding performers, to let viewers experience the beauty, curiosity, ingenuity, and fun of Chinese operas, as well as to appreciate the long-lasting charms of the Chinese outstanding traditional culture and the elegance of the times.

One of the Cantonese operas, "A New Chapter of Cantonese Rhythm", is sung by Zeng Xiaomin, a national-level actress and winner of the Plum Blossom Prize in Chinese Drama and the leading role in the Magnolia Award for Dramatic Performing Arts at the Guangdong Cantonese Opera Theater, along with national-level actresses Pang Qinghua and Wen Ruqing, who are representing the Cantonese Opera.

This new Cantonese Opera song "A New Part of Cantonese Rhythm", composed by the excellent scriptwriter Feng Minyi of Guangdong Cantonese Opera Theatre, lyrics written by the national level performer Bu Canrong, and arranged by the cross-border music composer Chen Wangzhi, the singing and music are rearranged combining with the traditional Cantonese Opera plate cadence, which is of a strong Lingnan flavor and full of Cantonese flavor.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Cantonese Opera