Gao'an Tea Picking Opera is a traditional performing art developed on the basis of Gao'an folk songs and dances, lanterns, Nuo songs and dances during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and it absorbs the beneficial elements of Ruihe Opera, gong and drum opera and silk string opera on both sides of the Ruihe River. It is famous in the Jiangxi opera world for its artistic characteristics of "popular and vivid language, pure and clear intonation, a combination of rigidity and flexibility, and simple and elegant performance", and has become an ancient and beautiful camellia in the Jiangxi art garden. After the founding of New China, Gao'an Tea Picking Opera Troupe went to Mount Lushan (to perform the traditional drama "Sijiu Visits Her Sister") and to Shanghai (to perform the modern drama "The Little Security Guard Takes Office") to perform for the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party and in East China, and was highly praised by Mao Zedong, 1, 1, 1, 1 and other party and state leaders as well as the leaders of the 0 East China Bureau. The performance in Shanghai caused a sensation, and many national media such as People's Daily, Guangming Daily, and China Youth Daily made special reports on Gao'an Tea Picking Opera. The Troupe also performed in Beijing three times and won the Special Performance Award for Rare Operas in the Hundred Operas Gallery of the China National Culture Expo and other awards. So far, more than 30 plays have won provincial or national awards, including "Picking Grass for Pigs", "Mending Backpacks", "Luo Pa Bao", "Sun Cheng Fetching Wine", "Traveling on the Lake", "Broken Chicken", "Seeing Sisters on the 49th Day", "Autumn Harvest Season", "Rural Tide", "Han Ru Seeking a Supervisor", "Spring Crossing", "Watching Flowers in Four Seasons", and "Crutch Love". More than 200 artistic talents have been trained and cultivated, such as Chen Guotai, Li Huaying, Luo Yunhan, Wu Qiduo, Peng Jinhua, Peng Jincheng and other generations of Gao'an Tea Picking Opera performing artists, which have won a high reputation for Gao'an Tea Picking Opera. Gao'an Tea Picking Opera has a long history. Gao'an is adjacent to the provincial capital Nanchang in the east and runs through the important transportation routes of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Guizhou in the west. Since the establishment of the county and the city in the sixth year of Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty (201 BC), it has a history of more than 2,200 years. It is a famous "upper county of Jiangyou" in history. Zhou Deqing, a famous dramatist, phonologist and author of "Zhongyuan Yinyun" in the Yuan Dynasty, was born in Gao'an. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, there was a poem that reads: "In the middle of spring, the crimson clouds are full of wine flags, and everyone is drunk and watching Saihong." During the reign of Emperor Jiaqing, there was another poem that reads: "There is a new triangle troupe in the city, and every family will stop singing. The lanterns and children's plays have just been moved, and they are carrying the 竽笙 and going out of the nearby pass." "Hongfu Troupe" and "Saihong Troupe" are both famous Ruihe troupes, and the gong and drum opera triangle troupe is a type of drama that was later absorbed by Gao'an Caicha Opera. According to the local customs of Gao'an, New Year's drama is performed in the first month, Flower Festival drama and Niangniang drama are performed in the second month, God of Wealth drama is performed in the third month, Qingmiao drama is performed in the fourth month, Duanjie drama is performed in the fifth month, Huang drama is performed in the sixth month, temple fair drama is performed in the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth months, entertainment drama is performed in the eleventh month, and closing drama is performed in the twelfth month. There are dramas performed almost every month. The number of amateur farmers' troupes in Gao'an has also grown from 5 in the early days of liberation to 288 in its heyday. A dozen counties and cities around Gao'an, such as Shanggao, Yifeng, Tonggu, Yichun, etc., have also successively established professional troupes to perform Gao'an Tea Picking Opera. Fengcheng, Xinjian, Pingxiang, Xinyu, Fuzhou and other places still have the custom of performing Gao'an Tea Picking Opera. Gao'an Tea Picking Opera professional and amateur troupes go deep into these places to perform more than 100 shows every year. For a long time, the reason why Gao'an Tea Picking Opera has been able to sing all over the country is that Gao'an Tea Picking Opera has great openness. The predecessor of Gao'an Tea Picking Opera is Gao'an Silk String Opera. Gao'an Silk String Opera was born in the cradle of Gao'an local lanterns and grew and developed by sucking the nutrients of various classical operas. In the late Qing Dynasty, Gao'an people held lantern festivals every Spring Festival. Gao'an lanterns are of various types, including lion lanterns, running lanterns, clam shell lanterns, tea lanterns, lotus picking boats, bench dragons, etc. Some lanterns have characters and stories. For example, the tea lantern performance is performed by eight girls holding tea lanterns while dancing and singing. After singing a paragraph, they form a word. After singing four paragraphs, they form the four words "peace in the world". The "stool dragon" performance is performed by "Luo Husband" leading two young female actors and a clown, singing and dancing with a "loach dragon" similar to a stool as a prop. In the early years of the Republic of China, Gao'an lantern artists began to imitate and learn from Ruihe Opera, gong and drum opera and other big operas to perform on stage, and absorbed the beneficial elements of Gaoqiang Opera, Pihuang Opera, Taoist Gaoqiang and local folk tunes, thus forming the unique Gao'an silk string opera, namely Gao'an tea picking opera. Gao'an tea picking opera quickly evolved from a three-dimensional class of young male actors, young female actors and clowns to a small half-class with complete roles such as Xusheng, Podan and Hualian. It developed from a small lantern song opera accompanied by two huqins to a local opera with accompaniment of wind, percussion, pulling and stringing. Although Gao'an tea picking opera is a very regional opera, it is actually very creative. In the early days, Gao'an Tea Picking Opera wrote and performed a number of full-length operas based on folk imitations of "Strange Spectacles of the Past and Present", "Good and Evil Precepts" and local legends, such as "The Newspaper in Front of Me", "The Sword of the Green Blade", "The Ghost Cuts the Private Property", "The Wife Resigns and Gets a Son", "The Blind Man Seeks Wrongs", "The Heroine Saves Her Husband" and dozens of other unique traditional operas, together with more than 300 operas transplanted and adapted from other operas. In terms of music, the main melodies are lantern songs and tea picking tunes, and a series of music groups such as the main tune, the board tune, the board style, and the scene music have also been created. In addition, Gao'an Tea Picking Opera also has a certain stability and appreciation. Although the fusion opera of Gao'an Tea Picking Opera, the gong and drum opera, has undergone hundreds of years of evolution and development, it has always preserved the artistic form of the local small opera from the folk song style to the board tune, and has preserved precious artistic historical materials for the study of the development of Chinese drama. Their performances are either graceful, humorous, elegant, or vigorous and strong. They are especially good at stunts, such as short pole skills, hat skills, beard skills, drinking skills, spinning skills, etc. Their music is either gentle and melodious, or high-pitched and passionate, or lingering and sad. For example, the clown Xia Yongtai is praised as the "famous clown in Jiangnan" by the capital's literary and artistic circles for his rich and humorous performances, and the female role Peng Jinhua is deeply loved by the masses in Gao'an and its surrounding counties and cities for her clear and melodious singing. However, with the impact of the economic tide in the 1980s and 1990s, local traditional culture lost a lot of space and market, and Gao'an Tea Picking Opera also fell into a trough. The old artists of Gao'an Tea Picking Opera died one after another, and the original ecological performing arts were on the verge of extinction. The rural stage collapsed and the urban theater was dilapidated and in disrepair. The performance team was in a period of transition, there was no successor to the musical talent, and the editing and directing talent had been vacant for many years. Farmers' amateur troupes have also been declining sharply and struggling. In order to protect and support Gao'an Tea Picking Opera, an ancient art flower, the Gao'an Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have successively introduced corresponding policies and measures. Since 1987, the Ruizhou Art Festival or Gao'an Tea Picking Opera Art Festival has been held every two years, and Gao'an Tea Picking Opera has been declared as a municipal and provincial intangible cultural heritage protection project. In terms of capital investment, since 2003, the municipal finance has invested more than 700,000 yuan each year in the Gao'an Tea Picking Troupe's wages, facilities, rehearsal, and conditions. In terms of talent training, the Gao'an Tea Picking Troupe has trained three batches of young actors through the joint classes of the Provincial Art School and Gao'an Normal University and the training of the group. The cultural authorities have focused on supporting 15 farmers' amateur troupes such as the Jinhua Art Troupe, the Bajing Art Troupe, the Xinjie Art Troupe, and the Sunset Red Art Troupe. This year, Gao'an Tea Picking Opera, as one of the four major local operas in Jiangxi Province, has created and performed many excellent modern and ancient costume dramas, and has made a series of dramas into records, tapes or CDs for public release nationwide. From 2006 to 2006 alone, 36 dramas were filmed into VCD discs, which had a great impact. In May 2011, with the approval of the State Council, Gao'an Tea Picking Opera was included in the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage expansion projects. This ancient camellia will surely bloom more brilliantly in the new spring.