Elizabeth Wang Ming-chun

Liza Wang is the chairman of Barwo, the city’s only non-profit Cantonese opera organisation supporting Cantonese opera artists, and which has promoted the traditional art in Hong Kong since 1953. Wang’s fondness for Cantonese opera stems from visits with her father to the Sunbeam Theatre in North Point, where she lived as a child.

Following a three-year training contract with television station Rediffusion Hong Kong, where she learnt to act, sing, dance, report news and perform MC duties, she would go on to join a pop group and perform a range of diverse roles in popular local television dramas.

But her love for Cantonese opera never faded. She set up her own troupe in 1988 with husband and fellow Cantonese opera singer Law Kar-ying, and for years has been actively promoting the art. “There has been so little attention paid to our own traditional art, especially during and after colonial times, and we’re still paying a lot of attention to mostly western arts,” Wang says. “I’m doing all I can with my expertise and connection to help promote the art and pass it on to our next generation.”