Ministry aims to revive traditional opera schools

Beijing: The Ministry of Culture has drawn up a script to revitalise traditional opera schools across the country.

“It’s hard for many opera schools to enrol students, which reduces their educational quality.

“They are often bothered by shortages of money and their graduates are unable to meet the actual needs of troupes in many cases,” said Sun Ruofeng, director of the ministry’s technical guidance office.

Under the new initiative, professional troupes will take part in daily training as well as enrolment of new students in opera schools.

Opera students in secondary vocational schools will also not have to pay tuition.

“More fundraising channels will be created and a national evaluation platform will also be established to oversee educational quality,” said Sun.

New education models will help opera schools meet the needs of the job market and there will be more training in some local opera genres.

The new training system is expected to be in place by 2020.

Last month, the ministries of culture, education and finance, along with the publicity department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, released guidelines to strengthen traditional opera training.

In addition, the Ministry of Culture has vowed to bring more traditional opera performances to rural areas, where it sees a large market.

“The repertoire of opera performances will be opened to the public in advance for feedback,” said Zhang Yongxin, director of the ministry’s public culture office.

“We cannot just focus on how to serve the dish. Instead, we’d better let people choose the menu and let the government pay the bill.”

Some provinces have succeeded in their attempts to revitalise traditional opera.

According to Ding Guangqing, deputy head of the cultural department of Anhui province, traditional opera performances are now on stage in each of the province’s 15,000 villages at least once a year.

Each performance costs the government at least 4,400 yuan (RM2,760).

They are often bothered by shortages of money and their graduates are unable to meet the actual needs of troupes in many cases.

Sun Ruofeng