Origin of Yueju Opera

Vietnamese Opera originated in Sheng County (now Shengzhou), Zhejiang Province, and is a traditional opera art popular in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui and Gan. The predecessor of Yueju Opera was the "floor singing book", a form of rap developed on the basis of the "field singing" in Sheng County, Zhejiang Province, and gradually formed a fixed performance repertoire. Subsequently, Yueju Opera went through the stages of "singing along the door" and "walking on the stage", and gradually formed a distinctive art form for professional performances.

The form of Yueju Opera is constantly developing and perfecting, and the form of its performance has evolved from the initial pure self-entertainment to a complete art form after half a century of evolution. The performances of Yueju Opera are very touching, showing a kind of Jiangnan spirit, and most of them are based on the theme of "talented men and beautiful women", and there are many artistic genres.

Around 1910, Shanghai and Hangzhou welcomed the "Little Song Class", which was a new historical stage in the development of Yueju opera. Through the efforts of a large number of artists and scriptwriters, Yueju Opera continued to develop and innovate in terms of repertoire and theme writing, and reformed its performance, music and language, and gradually formed a team of performers who were mainly women.

After the founding of New China, Yueju Opera has become an increasingly sophisticated form of opera, which has become popular both at home and abroad, and on May 20, 2006, the State Council approved the listing of Yueju Opera as one of the first batch of intangible cultural heritages in China.