The transformation of Chinese music into American music in the early twentieth century
The Chinatown opera house provided Chinese immigrants with an essential source of entertainment during the pre–World War II era. But its stories of loyalty, obligation, passion, and duty also attracted diverse patrons into Chinese American communities
Drawing on a wealth of new Chinese- and English-language research, Nancy Yunhwa Rao tells the story of iconic theater companies and the networks and migrations that made Chinese opera a part of North American cultures. Rao unmasks a backstage world of performers, performance, and repertoire and sets readers in the spellbound audiences beyond the footlights. But she also braids a captivating and complex history from elements outside the opera house walls: the impact of government immigration policy; how a theater influenced a Chinatown’s sense of cultural self; the dissemination of Chinese opera music via recording and print materials; and the role of Chinese American business in sustaining theatrical institutions. The result is a work that strips the veneer of exoticism from Chinese opera, placing it firmly within the bounds of American music and a profoundly American experience.
Cover Art Design by Jacqueline Thaw
Humanities and Cultural Studies Prize – AAAS
Lowens Book Award – SAM
Music in American Culture Prize – AMS
Citation of Merit – ARSC
Forthcoming in Chinese translation (Shanghai Conservatory Press and Guangxi Normal University Press)
Chinatown Opera Theater in North America
![](https://sites.rutgers.edu/nancy-yunhwa-rao/wp-content/uploads/sites/558/2017/12/RaoF16-scaled.jpg)
Book Reviews
– Ashley Thorpe, Theatre Journal 72/3 (2020).
– Andrew Granade, Journal of the Society for American Music 13/3 (2019).
– Lei Ouyang Bryant, MUSICultures: Journal of The Canadian Society for Traditional Music 45/1-2 (2019).
– Dongshin Chang, The World of Music 8/1 (2019).
– Cecilia J. Pang, Studies in Theatre and Performance 39/1 (2019).
– Laurence Coderre, CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 37/1 (2018).
– Helen Rees, Ethnomusicology Forum (2018).
– Jonathan Stock, Journal of the American Musicological Society 71/3 (2018).
– Sooi Beng Tan, Wacana Seni Journal of Arts Discourse 17 (2018).
– Si-Yu Wang, China Book Review 3 (2018). [in Chinese]
– Andrew Gibb, Theatre History Studies 37/2 (2018).
– Krystyn Moon, Theatre Survey 59/1 (2018).
– Jennifer C.H.J. Wilson, American Music Review 46/2 (2018).
– Xing Fan, Asian Theatre Journal 35/2 (2018).
– Levi S. Gibbs, China Review International 23/2 (2016).
– Yvonne Liao, Cambridge Opera Journal 31/2-3 (2019).
– Luo, Qin, Journal of the Central Conservatory of Music (2021.01).