Hunan Opera is a local drama enjoying the same reputation with Wuhan Opera and Sichuan Opera. It has high, elastic, Kun and low pitched tones. Due to its long history, Hunan Opera offers a long list of plays. Both its music and performance are full of Hunan characteristics. For 500 years since it was initiated, the opera has been welcomed by the Hunan people.
Over the past 50 years, the provincial Hunan Opera theater has made screen versions of the traditional operas worshipping the Moon, Drawing Lots for Life and Death and modern opera Ode to Teachers. They have given performances in
Beijing for a dozen times and made many performance tours nationwide. In 1952, Hunan Opera artists Xu Shaoqing, Peng Linong, Yang Fupeng and Lou Yuande carried off the first, second, third and honorary prizes at the first national drama festival. In 1986, entrusted by the Ministry of Culture, they participated in the first "China Local Opera Exhibition" in Hong Kong. The theater also won the first and seventh Wenhua Prize for new plays issued by the Ministry of Culture. Wang Yongguang and Zuo Dabin respectively won Wenhua performance prize.
