Liuqin Opera (Jiangsu)

Liuqin opera, known colloquially as "soul-pulling tune," takes the willow-leaf lute as its lead instrument and is popular across northern Jiangsu and southern Shandong around Xuzhou, one of the few surviving native operatic forms. Jiangsu liuqin opera, declared by Xuzhou, entered the first national ICH list in 2006 under traditional opera (project code Ⅳ-63).

Its singing is gentle and graceful, rich in ornamental coloratura, led by the willow-leaf lute with separate male and female registers and a strong flavour of everyday life; its traditional repertoire runs to over three hundred plays, often drawn from folk tales and chapter novels, with works such as Siping Mountain, Eight-Pan Mountain, The Flower Maid and The Fish Basket.

Liuqin opera represents the folk theatre of northern Jiangsu and southern Shandong, carrying the region's dialect music and everyday storytelling, and is called "soul-pulling" for its hold on the audience, with real value for the study of how northern and southern opera intermingled.