Thăng Long Ca trù theatre is the first and the only place having professional ca trù shows.
Ca trù is known as scholarly music in Vietnam and has been developed within the history of Thăng Long - Hà Nội.
Thăng Long – Hà Nội is nearly 1000 years old, and ca trù has experienced the whole history of this place. However, the most glory period of ca trù was in XV, XVI and XIX century. At the beginning of the XX century, the western living style with its own entertainment forms began to stir up the old eastern city to finally giving birth to the new ca trù wave known under the name of đào rượu. New “guinguettes” mushroomed and their owners added to the Ả đào the new way of making profit: beside the true singers, they recruited other courtesans aiming only to serve the liquor to clients, thence the name of đào rượu literally “young lady serving the liquor to customers”.
In 1945, date of the Revolution which gave birth to the new democratic republic of Việt Nam, the authorities have banned the practice of đào rượu just aiming to rehabilitate the ca trù as a pure form of musical entertainment inside a new society; but, due to “leftising” trends born from any “new life”, then the furor of consecutive wars which necessarily led to some way of ascetic living style, the ca trù was in front of new difficulties. The singers and their partners – lute players tuning them during the performance – were scattered, and little by little the ca trù vanished from the social and artistic life.
In recent years, ca trù has regularly interested the public again. However, after years of being forgotten, ca trù has been badly affected. Most of modalities have been vanished; none was remembered, recorded or noted. Those who can perform or have knowledge about ca trù are rare.
Thăng Long Ca trù theatre is the first and the only place having professional ca trù shows.
At the theatre, visitors enjoy one of Vietnamese scholarly music trends and find out its historical and cultural meanings through pictures, photos, calligraphy pictures and exhibited objects at the theatre’s showroom. The theatre also presents a space of traditional trade villages to visitors to explore Vietnamese culture and its people.
The theatre operates under a principle of preserving and developing ca trù to build a better society. Thus, a part of its profits will be used for training potential ca trù artists. The other part will be used for vocational training for orphans and children in difficult circumstances to help them learn a job and become useful citizens in the society.
For all of these reasons, coming to our theatre, you are contributing to our efforts on preserving a valuable asset of Vietnam as well as of the world, and giving a hand to build a better society.
