Yue Opera
If you are into traditional Chinese theater, Yue Opera is worth a watch.
Yue Opera really nails the expression of female characters' emotions. Yue Opera is regarded as the second largest opera genre in China and is also known as the "second national opera". We also call it Shaoxing Opera.
The History of Yue Opera
Yue Opera evolved from the chanting form of storytelling. Around 1852, Jin Qibing, a poor peasant from Matang Village in Sheng County, created a new tune on the basis of folk songs and ditties. He sang about scenery, local news and simple stories, attracting many people to learn to sing from him. Since there were added words and drawn-out tunes with the words "si gong he shang chi" after each line of singing, it was called the [Si Gong He Tune]. At first, storytelling was a form of self-entertainment for peasants in their spare time after work, and later it developed into a supplementary means of making a living during the slack farming season. Later still, there emerged semi-agricultural and semi-artistic forms of storytelling on the ground and on the stage with a certain professionalism.
During the Spring Festival in 1906, storytelling artists made the first attempt at role-playing performances in Yuhang, Zhejiang. During the Qingming Festival, they officially performed in the form of an opera in Dongwang Village, Sheng County. From then on, a new opera genre was born. To distinguish it from the Shaoxing Grand Opera which was popular in the Shaoxing area, it was called the "Small Song and Literature Troupe", abbreviated as the "Small Song Troupe". The artists were basically male peasants who were semi-agricultural and semi-artistic, so it was commonly known as the "Male Troupe". The tunes used continued to be the [Ling E Tune] from the time of storytelling, with human voices providing vocal accompaniment and without stringed instrument accompaniment. Most of the plays were folk short plays. The name "Yue Opera" first appeared in the performance advertisement in the Shanghai "Shenbao" in 1925.
After the birth of the Small Song Troupe, it spread from Sheng County to the neighboring areas of Shaoxing and Ningbo. It entered the provincial capital of Hangzhou in 1910. On May 13, 1917, it entered Shanghai for the first time. Later, the artists learned the performance skills of Shaoxing Grand Opera and Peking Opera, and their artistry was improved. Since 1920, the Small Song Troupe has gathered almost all the relatively well-known actors and created and performed some new plays with their own characteristics and were quite fascinating.
In order to adapt to the urban environment and survive in the competition, there was an urgent need for change, to change the overly simple situation of the opera genre and improve the artistic level. In 1921, the first professional band in the history of Yue Opera was formed on the Shengping Opera Stage in Shanghai. Stringed instrument performances were used to replace the vocal accompaniment and tune connection. Since the tuning of the banhu was set at the two notes of 1 - 5, which were "zheng" and "gong" on the gongche notation, it was called the Zheng Gong Tune. From September 1921 to 1922, male troupe artists successively renamed the opera genre as Shaoxing Literature Opera and developed it towards ancient costume grand operas.
In 1923, Yue Opera influenced by the Mao'er troupe of Peking Opera (a troupe of young girls), the first girls' training class was founded. Later, due to the shortage of successors among the male actors, the male troupe was replaced by the female troupe. Around 1929, the female troupe was all the rage, and Shanghai gradually became the performance center of the female troupe.
In 1938, Yue Opera was officially named. From the 1930s to the 1940s, women's Yue Opera achieved great development in Shanghai. Since the 1940s, famous actress Yuan Xuefen and others carried out a comprehensive reform of Yue Opera, and Yue Opera entered the New Yue Opera period. Later, Yue Opera gradually spread across the country and became one of the most widely spread local opera genres.
Chinese Operas 
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Kun Opera 
Pingju Opera