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Cantonese opera can be dated back to the reign of Emperor Jiajing (1522-1566) of the Ming Dynasty. It is in fact a blend of different operatic styles, such as the Yiyang and Kun tunes of the Ming Dynasty, the Xiqin and Han Opera of the early Qing Dynasty, the regional operas from the provinces of Jiangsu, Henan, Anhui, Hunan, Hebei and Guangxi as well as the local Guangdong music and its tradition of telling stories through song.
During the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795), Canton has already been the home for most of the Cantonese opera troupes and they have set up an association called “ Qionghua Guild”. Near Qionghua Guild, there was a water area reserved for the anchorage of “red boats”. “Red boats” were some wooden yachts mainly painted in red. Its major function was to transport the staff and the chests for the troupe, including the costumes and ornaments for the stage performances. Since most of the Cantonese operas during late Qing were performed in the delta region of the Pearl River, boat was the main mode of transportation and the troupes also lived on the Red Boats too. Life on a Red Boat was very stringent, with rigid rules for allocation of beds in the cabin and division of labor among the artists themselves. Nevertheless, the rules on Red Boats had in fact laid a solid foundation for the organization of Cantonese opera troupe in the future. By the 1930s, since the major performing venues for Cantonese opera had moved to big cities and more convenient forms of transportation became available, the Red Boats began to disappear gradually.
In 2012, The Guangzhou Municipal Government determined to build a Cantonese Opera Art Museum to conserve and inherit the endangered Cantonese Opera in Liwan District, known as “Xiguan” the revival area of Cantonese Opera in ancient Guangzhou. Cantonese Opera and Lingnan Gardens were deeply rooted in this district. Traditional landscape was a typical performance place of Cantonese Opera in the past.
Guangdong Province, referred to as "Yue ", the provincial capital Guangzhou, the jurisdiction of cities in 21 provinces, including two deputy provincial cities (Guangzhou, Shenzhen), prefecture-level cities 19. Formerly Kwangtung, Canton, is Pinyin GuǎngDōng. Guangdong is the southern coast of mainland China, a province located south of Nanling, the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Macao, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian border, and Hainan across the sea. It is a Han Chinese as the main provinces, the country's 56 ethnic groups are distributed in the province. Guangdong customs and in language, history and culture, have a unique aspect, the internal department has three people, and northern China are very different. Guangdong GDP value has surpassed Taiwan as China's most economically developed provinces in the most open culture.
