Guangzhou's Cantonese Opera Art Museum is not only a museum about music but also a place that itself seems like a song.

It is, indeed, as harmonious as the melodies it venerates.

Its grounds are gardens built in the area's traditional Lingnan style.

Rockeries are reflected in ponds brimming with koi. Pagodas line cobblestone paths. Buildings are constructed according to local traditions, with white walls beneath eaves that curl at the corners like claws.

The 17,000-square-meter compound not only promotes opera but all things Cantonese.

Visitors can watch craftspeople carve olive pits, paint porcelain and fashion guqin (zithers). Wing chun kung fu masters punch and kick specialized wooden poles with pegs-and one another-to the accompaniment of pipa (lutes).

The museum that opened in 2016 is said to be located in the neighborhood where Cantonese Opera was born centuries ago. Locals continue to stage open-air shows under a nearby banyan tree, where the performance art is believed to have first taken root.

The museum displays over 5,000 items, including colorful costumes and magnificent masks worn by various characters.

A display on face paint, for instance, shows Zhong Wuyan, whose makeup is "half beautiful, half ugly". That's because her character is physically unattractive but intellectually gifted, especially in military strategy.

Generals are typically depicted with four triangular flags fluttering from their backs, like wings. Headdress pheasant feathers designate martial artists.

But perhaps the most common character isn't that of an opera role or actor but rather of the fire-guardian, Huaguang. Cantonese Opera's deity is often depicted with a third eye sideways in his forehead.

Legend has it that the Jade Emperor-Taoism's top divinity-was infuriated upon learning locals were staging The Legend of the Jade Emperor.

So, he commanded Huaguang to burn the theaters.

But Huaguang watched the show and realized it didn't actually denigrate heaven.

So, he instructed the performers to pack the ends of long bamboo poles with gunpowder and sulfur, and ignite them.

The Jade Emperor saw the smoke and believed the bamboo theaters had been incinerated.

Performers worship Huaguang at temples and at the museum, especially on the 28th day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, which is believed to be his birthday.

He's also believed to have protected the iconic and fire-prone "red boats" aboard which opera troupes lived and traveled during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and the Republic of China period (1912-49).

Each troupe of 158 performers would have two vessels with about 80 people each-one called "heaven" that housed singers and instrumentalists, and another called "Earth" for wing chun masters.

The museum also hosts indoor and outdoor stages that can accommodate hundreds of audience members and regularly stages free shows.

One hall portrays the internationalization of Cantonese Opera, which was put on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2009.

Such Western instruments as the saxophone, piano and symphonic instruments were introduced in the 1930s. And several productions are regularly performed overseas in English and Malay.

The Cantonese Opera Art Museum has indeed contributed to the preservation of the ancient performance art and traditional Cantonese culture in modern times, in its birthplace and lands afar-much like a beautiful song wafting through time and space.