Tea Picking Opera (northern Guangdong Tea Picking Opera)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Tea Picking Opera (northern Guangdong Tea Picking Opera)

Applicant: Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province

Item No.: 209

Project No.: Ⅳ - 65

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: Traditional Drama

Region: Guangdong Province

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province

Protection unit: Shaoguan Yuebei Tea Picking Opera protection and inheritance Center (Shaoguan Yuebei Tea Picking Opera Theater)

Brief introduction of Tea Picking Opera (North Guangdong Tea Picking Opera)

Applicant: Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province

Tea Picking Opera in northern Guangdong (triangle Opera) is a kind of local folk opera which is popular in northern Guangdong. It originated from the "tea picking folk song and ditty" popular in Fujian and Jiangxi before Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the process of inheritance, it has gradually become a unique local opera in northern Guangdong by absorbing Folk Lantern and flower drum dance performances from southern Hunan and Jiangxi. It is widely distributed in eastern Guangdong, southern Jiangxi, southern Hunan and Eastern Guangxi.

There are a large number of traditional plays in northern Guangdong Tea Picking Opera, such as "grinding tofu" and "Shuangshuang Pei", which praise the freedom of marriage, "selling groceries" and "beating dog to persuade husband" which punish evil and promote good and family ethics, as well as "a San Kan Jie" and "night robber's cold clothes" which flog and satirize the ugly society, etc.

After 1949, Tea Picking Opera in northern Guangdong has developed rapidly. A number of county and city professional tea picking opera troupes have been established one after another, and a number of traditional excellent plays have been sorted out and restored. At present, there are still more than 300 newly created and edited operas of Tea Picking Opera in northern Guangdong, including ancient costume opera and modern opera. Some traditional operas in their performance for many years, through constantly absorbing and learning from the advantages of other excellent operas, so as to coruscate new artistic vitality.