A Dream in Fantasia — A Cantonese Opera Based on A Midsummer Night's Dream

Authors

  • Loretta Ling Yeung Hong Kong and Augusta, GA, USA

Keywords:

Midsummer, Opera, Hong Kong, Performance Studies

Abstract

This review discusses an appropriation of A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Hong Kong Young Talent Cantonese Opera Troupe. While retaining most of Shakespeare's characters and his basic plot structure, the new opera, A Dream in Fantasia, aimed to expand the audience for Cantonese opera. At the same time it proved to be transparently entertaining to its Cantonese audience.

Author Biography

  • Loretta Ling Yeung, Hong Kong and Augusta, GA, USA

    Ms. Loretta Siu Ling Yeung is both a classically trained soprano in the Western bel canto tradition and an ethnomusicologist who specializes in the history and culture of Cantonese opera. Her thesis, entitled "Red Boat Troupes and Cantonese Opera," focuses on the history of the travelling opera troupes that performed in the Pearl River delta of China in the 1920s and '30s. Ms. Yeung has worked as a translator and editor for the Opera Information Center of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and she is the President of Operas of Two Worlds, a non-profit organization that promotes exchanges of Western and Cantonese Operas.

Issue Cover text: B&L, Vol. 9, No. 1, 204. Image: Two actresses in an adaptation of the Tempest wade together on a shoreline, hands clasped.

Downloads

Published

2014-05-01

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2014): Girls and Girlhood in Adaptations of Shakespeare

Section

Appropriations in Performance Reviews

How to Cite

A Dream in Fantasia — A Cantonese Opera Based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (2014). Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation, 9(1). https://borrowers-ojs-azsu.tdl.org/borrowers/article/view/149