Résumés
Abstract
Opera theatre forms an important part of Chinese Canadian cultural history. Since first appearing in Victoria in the 1860s, Chinese theatres were woven into the community’s everyday life, performing Cantonese opera, the regional genre known to the majority of Chinese immigrants who came from the Pearl River Delta of southern China. A brief survey of historical city maps from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century shows their central role in Chinese Canadian community of the Pacific Northwest. Recent discovery of a Chinese theatrical company’s daily business receipts provides a window into the performance culture and daily operations of a Chinese theatre between 1916 and 1918 in Vancouver. This vibrant period of the 1910s paved the way for full-fledged theatre operation in the following decade that brought about a new era of Chinese opera performance in Canada.
Résumé
L’opéra constitue une part importante de l’histoire culturelle sino-canadienne. Dès leur apparition à Victoria dans les années 1860, les théâtres chinois faisaient organiquement partie de la vie quotidienne de la communauté, pour laquelle ils programmaient des opéras cantonnais, genre régional et familier pour les immigrants chinois de la région du Delta de la Rivière des Perles dans le sud de la Chine. Un survol des cartes historiques de villes de la fin du XIXe siècle et du début du XXe siècle illustre leur rôle central dans la communauté sino-canadienne du Nord-Ouest Pacifique. La découverte récente des comptes journaliers d’une compagnie théâtrale chinoise nous donne un accès inédit à la culture de performance et aux opérations quotidiennes d’un théâtre chinois de Vancouver entre 1916 et 1918. La période florissante des années 1910 a préparé le déploiement complet de l’activité théâtrale des décennies suivantes, qui ont contribué à l’avènement d’une nouvelle ère pour la performance de l’opéra chinois au Canada.
Parties annexes
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