For more than six decades, Joanna Wong has devoted her life to Cantonese opera. She has performed it, taught it, modernised it and taken it around the world. Alongside her late husband, Leslie Wong, she also helped build one of Singapore’s most important Chinese opera institutions from the ground up.

Now, as Chinese Theatre Circle (CTC) marks its 45th anniversary, that extraordinary journey is coming to the stage. Presented in collaboration with Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, One Love, A Legacy: Celebrating Joanna & Leslie Wong and Chinese Theatre Circle will be staged at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade on 19 and 20 September 2026.

More than an anniversary performance, the contemporary multimedia production traces the lives of Joanna and Leslie, their six decades in Chinese opera and the remarkable story of the company they founded in 1981.

One Love, A Legacy is a story about two people whose shared passion for opera became something much larger than themselves. Joanna Wong, Singapore’s best-known Cantonese Opera artist and a Cultural Medallion recipient — and Leslie Wong spent decades championing an art form that has often been described as being in decline. Their answer was not simply to preserve it as a historical tradition, but to find ways for new audiences to encounter it. I

In 1981, Joanna, Leslie and a group of opera enthusiasts established Chinese Theatre Circle, Singapore’s first professional, non-profit Chinese opera company. The organisation went on to become a major force in promoting Cantonese opera through performances, festivals, talks, workshops and education programmes. Now, the anniversary production brings that story into a contemporary theatrical setting.

“Although Chinese opera is said to be in decline, the journey of Chinese Theatre Circle shows that there’s still a love for this intangible cultural heritage in Singapore,” says Artistic Director of CTC, Joanna Wong. “This production is a celebration of the resilience, passion and personal sacrifices of opera practitioners over the decades. We hope that audiences will leave with an appreciation of this beautiful traditional art form, which is part of our cultural history.”

The production brings together generations and disciplines. Created through an artistic collaboration between Joanna Wong, Cantonese Opera artists Christopher Choo and Jaron Leong, and award-winning contemporary visual artist Ming Wong, One Love, A Legacy marks the first time Joanna has worked with her nephew Ming.

Based in Berlin, Ming Wong has long explored identity, cinema and popular culture through his transdisciplinary practice, including works inspired by Chinese Opera. His installation Wayang Spaceship (2022–24) is one such example.

The collaboration creates an unusual meeting point between traditional Chinese Opera and contemporary theatre. The production features 22 performers, bringing together CTC artists, Joanna Wong’s opera students from across the decades and guest artists from China’s Hong Dou Cantonese Opera Troupe.

Rather than presenting a straightforward historical account, the show combines dramatic scenes, excerpts from signature operas and multimedia storytelling to explore both the personal and collective dimensions of the journey. There are the achievements, certainly, but also the sacrifices behind them, the aspirations of artists and the persistence required to keep a traditional art form alive across generations.

Performed in English and Cantonese, with English and Chinese surtitles, the production is designed to bridge audiences and generations in much the same way that CTC has sought to bridge tradition and contemporary life.

Joanna Wong’s own story is inseparable from the evolution of Cantonese opera in Singapore. Born in 1939, she became the first Chinese opera artist to receive the Cultural Medallion, in 1981. For more than 60 years, she has worked as a performer, educator and cultural innovator, playing a significant role in reviving Cantonese opera and raising performance standards in Singapore.

Among her pioneering contributions was the introduction of English and Chinese surtitles to Cantonese opera in 1976, a move that helped make the traditional art form more accessible to wider audiences. She also served as president of the Pat Wo Association, the association of Cantonese opera artists in Singapore, and received the BBM (Bintang Bakti Masyarakat) for public service.

With CTC, she has performed in more than 25 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK and the USA. Even after the passing of Leslie in 2023, Joanna has continued her work. Most recently, in January 2024, she staged and directed Leslie’s final opera, Rage Over a Concubine, at the Drama Centre. Now, at 87, she remains deeply involved in the art form that has defined so much of her life.

CTC’s influence extends well beyond the professional stage. In the 1980s, the company presented extensive series of performances at community centres and began teaching Chinese opera and singing there, helping to spark a grassroots movement that continues today through Cantonese opera interest groups in community centres around Singapore. It has also trained a new generation of opera artists and premiered locally written Cantonese opera works.

Over the years, CTC has partnered with organisations including the Singapore Tourism Board and National Arts Council, while also acting as a cultural ambassador for Singapore. Its productions have travelled to more than 25 countries, including Australia, Belgium, China, Canada, Egypt, France, Romania, the USA and UK.

In 2010, CTC received an award for “Successful Modernisation of Traditional Theatre” at an international theatre festival in Ukraine, where it presented Intrigues in the Qing Imperial Court, a pioneering Cantonese opera in English written by co-founder Leslie Wong Sze Ying. That history of experimentation is reflected in the anniversary production itself.

There is another layer of legacy woven into One Love, A Legacy: family. Ming Wong, the production’s Executive Producer and Multimedia Director, is Joanna and Leslie’s nephew. A Singapore-born, Berlin-based transdisciplinary artist, Ming represented Singapore at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, where his solo exhibition Life of Imitation received a Special Mention. His work is also currently on display at Tate Modern, and he was the 2025 artist-in-residence at the National Gallery London.

Working alongside him are artists who have themselves been shaped by Singapore’s opera and theatre traditions. Christopher Choo, the production’s Artistic Director, Scriptwriter and Director, is the only disciple of legendary opera master Leng Chi Pak. He also studied under Yam Tai-fun, a master of Northern operatic style in Hong Kong, and Joanna Wong herself.

A specialist in the laosheng, or elderly male, role, Choo is also experienced in clown, painted-face, elderly female, scholarly and warrior male roles. He has performed and directed across China, the UK, US, Japan and Egypt, and has worked across both Chinese and English theatre in Singapore.

Jaron Leong, the production’s Scriptwriter and Wardrobe Manager, has spent more than 40 years on and off stage, working across performance and backstage roles including makeup, costumes and actor positioning. He was also Joanna Wong’s first student in writing English subtitles for Chinese opera, continuing a particularly meaningful part of her legacy. As a whole, the production has been shaped not just by its history, but also people who have lived, learned and worked within that history.

The 45th anniversary of Chinese Theatre Circle is ultimately about looking into the future, not the past. One Love, A Legacy looks at what happens when a traditional art form is carried from one generation to the next, adapted, taught, performed and reinterpreted without losing sight of its roots.

For Joanna Wong, Leslie Wong and the artists who followed them, that legacy has never simply meant keeping Cantonese opera alive. It has meant giving people new reasons to encounter it. And in bringing their story to the Singtel Waterfront Theatre, One Love, A Legacy offers audiences a chance to see the human story behind the costumes, music and stylised movement: a story about love, partnership, sacrifice, artistic conviction and the determination to ensure that something precious survives.

One Love, A Legacy: Celebrating Joanna & Leslie Wong and Chinese Theatre Circle plays from 19th to 20th September 2026 at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre. Tickets available here