(IPS) feature Singapore's urbane non-character - highlighted by a pop culture marked by the penchant for having coloured hair and aping the MTV swag - poses a tough hurdle for purists out to revive a vanishing part of the island state's Chinese immigrant heritage: the street opera.

Akin to the London-based production Miss Saigon, which performed to full houses in Singapore's Kallang Theatre in September with all its drama, haunting arias and subtle movements, Chinese street opera is in transition, caught between the need to maintain its classical roots while at the same time appearing contemporary to the urbanised, affluent audience.

The archaic scripts, lumbering plots and piercing Chinese music are indeed alien to the younger audience in this city state of four million people, three-fourths of whom are of Chinese ethnicity.

Daphne Lim, media student at Ngee Ann Polytechnic University and a believer in Chinese opera, says, "Many young people today are so preoccupied with having enough money to buy everything they desire that they forget their heritage.''

''They pay no attention to the opera performances, dismissing them as practices related to traditional Chinese beliefs. They can't see past the traditions (and superstition) to the beauty of the art because they are blinded by the influence from the west,'' she points out.

'Speak Mandarin'

Majority of the young are also steeped in English, or in many cases, 'Singlish', as the distinctly Singaporean way of speaking English is called. This is despite the government's "speak Mandarin" campaign over the last decade.

The future of the Chinese language, which effectively frames community interest in Chinese opera, is also going through a phase of uncertainty among high school students who cannot see its relevance to an English-speaking world.

Given their poor command of the Chinese language, the prospect of their acquiring a passion for Chinese culture let alone to watch a Chinese drama or opera, is somewhat bleak.

Government-backed Asian theatre groups are thus re-inventing the street operatic art form with contemporary scripts, sounds and props to appeal to Singaporeans who, with their increasingly short concentration span in this age of mobile phones and all, would rather be seen as paid audience at baroque English theatrical plays than at lumbering, free and ethnic street operas.

Street operas across Singapore's Chinese dialect groups - Teochew, Hokkien, Hainanese and Cantonese - were month-long cultural entertainment for Chinese immigrants early this century, predating Broadway cabaret in all its colour, costumes, stylised gestures, and drama.

Today, they are more like a cultural enigma, trying to cope with modernity and performed mainly from August to September during the Hungry Ghosts Festival.

In this festival, Taoist beliefs have it that mischievous spirits wander the earth throughout the seventh month of the lunar year. At this time, it is customary for the religious to splash on banquets and street opera to appease the spirits. Old Chinese homes are virtually fenced by nightly rows of lit candles and joss. Spirits are treated with hell currency notes.

The rituals read like a month's commission of light entertainment. But as with all things in Singapore, new ways are taking over the old.

Singapore hopes to reinvent itself as the Asian renaissance city steeped in high culture and the arts.

The government thus provides administrative and the occasional funding support to local non-profit theatre organisations such as the Chinese Opera Society of Singapore.

Since it was formed in 1992, the society has been part of this image reconstruction process. It has selected the best troupes from China and Hong Kong to perform in Singapore such as the Chuan Opera, Yuju and Hebei Clapper Opera.

Local talent

Formed by a group of professionals bilingual in English and Chinese, the society believes that while grooming local artistes is important, an educated, informed audience is equally crucial to the survival of the art form.

It created the Young Opera Artistes Series to showcase local talent, pitching them against foreign professionals. This has introduced to the Singaporean audience new costumes, props and polished scripts, mainly in modern Cantonese to appeal to the younger set more attuned to the Hong Kong soap genre.

The society executive Goh Pok Gek says the local productions have been relying on directors from Guangzhou, southern China to train local bilingual amateur actors, many of whom hold other full-time day jobs.

In key roles, the amateur actor's allowance per performance range from 300 to 500 Singapore dollars excluding rehearsals.

For a local production involving 30 to 40 actors with a two-week rehearsals, Goh says a two-night performance may cost about 58,500 to 88,000 dollars. The bulk of this money comes from private sponsorship, clan associations and donations, which in the current recession is fast depleting.

Although Teochew and Hokkien are the dominant dialect groups, Cantonese opera is fast gaining popularity due to the influence of televised Hong Kong soap series, says Goh. Selected Cantonese operas are held throughout the year in different theatres and community halls.

The society president S'ng Poh Yoke says, "Unfortunately, in Singapore we cannot live on the arts.''

''All of us here work in the day and devote our leisure hours to promote this traditional art form. It has become very difficult after the Sep. 11 tragedy. Money from sponsors is not forthcoming at all - except from the foundations. We have to push our tickets very hard to break even,'' she adds.

"Our line-by-line translation of the script, however, is a big boon to all those who do not understand the dialects or read the Chinese script. This time, we are pushing to the schools very tenaciously. We're even creating the story in comic form for the kids,'' she explains.