Life & Style
Cultural activities celebrate Việt Nam Heritage Day
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| Quality endeavour: Dozens of cải lương artists will perform for free at the chairty show Nghệ Sĩ Tri Âm (Performers Together), organised by People’s Artist Kim Cương in HCM City. The event will raise funds for poor artists during the Tết season. — VNS Photo |
Viet Nam News
HCM CITY — Dozens of veteran and young artists will perform at HCM City’s Opera House next week to raise funds for poor theatre artists for the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday.
The 90-minute concert, Nghệ Sĩ Tri Âm (Performers Together), will feature cải lương (modern folk opera) stars, like Ngọc Giàu and Minh Vương, together with colleagues from traditional art troupes.
They will stage songs composed by veteran artists Nguyễn Văn Tý, Viễn Chinh, Hàn Châu and Mặc Thế Nhân.
Famous extracts from historical plays, such as Thái Hậu Dương Vân Nga (Queen Dương Vân Nga) and Tô Ánh Nguyệt (Ms Tô Ánh Nguyệt), will also be featured.
"Our concert is for 170 poor actors, especially the elderly and backstage workers, as well as 20 children from artists’ families," said 80-year-old People’s Artist Kim Cương, the event’s organiser and deputy chairman of the HCM City Association in Support of Disabled People and Orphan Children.
“We have tried our best to organise the show every year in a professional way because we want it to be not just a charity work but also a quality artistic endeavor,” she said.
All artists at the event will perform for free. They will give clothes, food and VNĐ5 million (US$220) in cash to each needy person.
Cương said that through the show she hopes to encourage more organisations and individuals to contribute to charity for theatre artists, who devoted their life to their art.
Last year, Nghệ Sĩ Tri Âm attracted more than 170 artists, raising over VNĐ1.5 billion ($66,000) for charity.
Cương began her professional career when she was 17 and later performed with cải lương gurus such as Năm Phỉ and Phùng Há, and Bảy Nam, head of Đại Phước Cương Troupe, one of the region’s leading cải lương troupes.
In the 1960s, she opened the Kim Cương Drama Troupe, managing a staff of 70, including young talents like Tú Trinh and Văn Hùng.
Her troupe offered dozens of quality plays on topics such as love, family and social problems, with most of them written by Cương. They are still staged today.
For her contribution to the theatre, Cương was named a People’s Artist by the Government in 2012.
The show Nghệ Sĩ Tri Âm will open at 8pm on January 14. — VNS
