When and where was Huangmei Opera born?

Huangmei Opera, also known as Huangmei Tune, is one of China's local opera genres, popular in Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Hubei, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shanxi and other parts of the country. Huangmei Opera has a popular content, lively form, fresh style and melodious tunes. In the early 1960s, its traditional play "Tian Xian Matching" was made into a movie, which caused a great reaction in the country, and even Hong Kong and Taiwan had set off the Huangmei Opera fever.

Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, however, Huangmei Opera was unjustly banned by the rulers as "a ghost opera that corrupts the morals of the people". In order to make a living, Huangmei Opera artists had to perform secretly in the countryside. As a result of the difficult life, the vast majority of artists did not study, and therefore the formation and development of Huangmei Opera singing and artists' stage experience, almost entirely by word of mouth, so that the origin of the Huangmei Opera can only be used in the form of a legend passed on to the rest of the world.

On the time and place of the Huangmei Opera, the most common theory is that the tea-collecting tune in Huangmei County, Hubei Province, is the prototype of the Huangmei Opera. In the process of its formation, this ditty blended with the nearby Jiangxi tune and Fengyang flower drums, and was constantly enriched and perfected. After the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, it was introduced into the areas of Anhui and Jiangxi, and was influenced by the Qingyang accent, and combined with local folk songs, dances and rap music, finally forming the Huangmei Opera, which took root in the area of Anqing, Anhui Province.

The second legend says that Zhang Xianzhong's army "musicians" scattered around Huangmei at the end of the Ming Dynasty were the "originators" of Huangmei opera. Legend has it that after Zhang Xianzhong's peasant insurgents were defeated in Hubei, those who could sing and dance in the army were concentrated in the Huangmei area, and they made a living by singing and dancing, which was popular among the local people, and some of them even followed the learning process, so a new form of theater was formed in the area of Huangmei, which was called "Huangmei Opera".

The third legend says: Anqing, Anhui Province, to meet the God will be the hotbed of Huangmei opera. In the early years, when the plums were yellow at the beginning of summer, floods often flooded the area, and the people prayed for a good year, so they held a festival to welcome the gods, singing and dancing to entertain the gods. Later, on the basis of such songs and dances, a theater was created, which was called "Huangmei Opera" because it was related to the season of yellow plums.

Which of these legends is closer to the truth remains to be seen.