About us
Preserving a living heritage. Creating new Canadian stories.
Vancouver Cantonese Opera
Vancouver Cantonese Opera (VCO), established in 2000 by Founder and Artistic Director Rosa Cheng, is a non-profit charitable society dedicated to preserving, promoting, and advancing Cantonese opera in Canada. Rooted in tradition and responsive to contemporary Canadian life, VCO brings this distinctive art form to Chinese and non-Chinese audiences through bilingual and accessible programming.
Heritage, Innovation, and Community
VCO presents performances, classes, workshops, youth activities, festival programs, free community concerts, and outreach for adults and seniors in care homes. Our work reaches audiences in theatres, libraries, museums, community centres, festivals, public spaces, and online. We also collaborate with artists from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds to explore new approaches to music, movement, theatre, and storytelling.
Our first fusion opera, The Prop Master’s Dream, premiered in 2022 and was remounted at the Vancouver Playhouse in 2024. Inspired by the life of Chinatown prop master Wah-Kwan Gwan, the bilingual work explores migration, displacement, resilience, intercultural memory, and Chinese-Indigenous relations. VCO is now developing The Awakening, a second fusion opera exploring Chinese Canadian history during the Second World War and the legacy of Vancouver Chinatown’s historic Sing Kew Theatre.
Our Values
VCO is guided by artistic integrity, thoughtful innovation, accessibility, intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, inclusion, community engagement, and reconciliation. We believe Cantonese opera can honour cultural memory while creating new connections among artists, audiences, and communities.
Partner with VCO
Support for VCO helps sustain a living cultural tradition, develop new Canadian works, create opportunities for artists, and expand bilingual public programming. We welcome partnerships with funders, cultural institutions, presenters, educators, community organizations, artists, and patrons who share our commitment to heritage, innovation, and meaningful cultural exchange.
Rosa Cheng
Founder and Artistic Director, Vancouver Cantonese Opera
Rosa Cheng is a Cantonese opera artist, playwright, and cultural leader dedicated to preserving and reimagining Cantonese opera in Canada. In 2000, she founded Vancouver Cantonese Opera (VCO), a non-profit charitable society that promotes the art form through performance, education, community outreach, and artistic development.
For more than twenty-five years, Cheng has worked to make Cantonese opera accessible to audiences of different ages, languages, and cultural backgrounds. Under her leadership, VCO has presented bilingual performances, workshops, school and university programs, youth activities, community concerts, and collaborations with artists from other disciplines. Her work connects the artistic foundations of Cantonese opera with contemporary Canadian stories and audiences.
Original Fusion Works
In 2022, Cheng created and performed the leading role of Phoenix in The Prop Master’s Dream, VCO’s first original Cantonese fusion opera. Inspired by the life of Chinatown prop master Wah-Kwan Gwan, the bilingual production explores migration, displacement, identity, resilience, intercultural memory, and Chinese-Indigenous relations. The work was remounted at the Vancouver Playhouse in 2024.
Cheng has since completed her second original work, The Awakening, in which she will perform the role of Peony. The production explores Chinese Canadian history during the Second World War, the struggle for civil rights, and the cultural legacy of Vancouver Chinatown’s historic Sing Kew Theatre.
Artistic Vision
As a pioneer in the development of Cantonese fusion opera in Canada, Cheng is committed to expanding the form’s artistic possibilities without losing its cultural essence. Through performance, writing, collaboration, and public education, she seeks to create meaningful connections among tradition and innovation, history and contemporary life, and artists and audiences from different communities.
Land acknowledgement
We are grateful to live and work on the unceded and ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
On stage
