A Teochew opera artiste needs to be well-versed in martial arts, acrobatics, acting and singing. Sophie’s vocal prowess belies her small stature, but the real show-stopper, for me, was her delivery in Teochew, which she had painstakingly perfected through rote memorisation since the age of three.
“When I first started, it was a little bit difficult. I don’t usually speak Teochew, and it was a new language for me to learn. The teacher would give us the script, and I would write the pinyin down. When I went home, I would memorise the lines.”
At three and a half years old, Sophie performed for the first time in the Teochew opera classic, Tao Hua Crosses The River. As if going onstage before a live audience wasn’t daunting enough for a young child, she had to sing, act and dance – the whole nine yards.
“It took me half a month to memorise the lines for a four-minute show. When I was first on stage, I was really nervous because I thought I would do something wrong. But I did really well, actually,” she said. Her longest performance to date? A 30-minute show that took nearly half a year to master.
LIFE LESSONS FROM TEOCHEW OPERA
When Sophie started out, all the props were bigger than her. But just as stage fright dissipated with one performance after another, Sophie also grew accustomed to the challenges of being a young Teochew opera artiste.
“When I first put the headdress on, I was like, oh my god! It’s so heavy! But after a while, I got used to it. I don’t feel like it’s heavy anymore.”