Taiwanese Opera has a history of more than a century. The primitive “Lo-deh Sao”（落地掃）play has already evolved into delicate and refined performance on modern stages. Besides the advancement of modern technology, the development of Taiwanese Opera has been profoundly influenced by the political and economic change in Taiwan. Taiwanese Opera was born in Qing Dynasty, began to flourish during Japanese Occupation, and faded for some time after World War II. Because of the rise of the awareness of local cultures here in Taiwan recently, Taiwanese Opera has come to another transitional phase.

Around 1910, the primitive forms of Taiwanese Opera, like Lo-deh Sao”（落地掃）or parade performances, became popular. Some people came out to reform the performance to make Taiwanese Opera more sophisticated. Gradually, Taiwanese Opera was transformed from buffoon plays with bulk plots into “Large Dramas” with complete plots. It’s called “the Old Taiwanese Opera, or “the local Taiwanese Opera.” In the beginning, while the performance of Taiwanese Opera remained primitive and still played on “Outdoor Stages”, it has already taken the form of “Large Dramas.” However, “Outdoor-Stage” performance served as a transition between Small Dramas and Large Dramas. Taiwanese Opera began to adopt the costume, aesthetic movements, dialogues and music of the trendy Large Dramas, such as Kao-chia Opera、Luantan (Chaotic Playing) Shows、Siping Opera、Nanquan Opera. Then, in order to gain acceptance in urban areas, the themes of Taiwanese Operas were expanded from folk tales to historical materials. In addition, Taiwanese Opera incorporated several key elements from Peking Opera, such as the art of performance, music, costumes and makeup. Soon, the charisma of Taiwanese Opera conquered Taiwanese people and became the major entertainment in people’s lives.
Around 1925, Taiwanese Opera entered the urban theater house and became “Indoor-Stage Taiwanese Opera”. From Taipei to Tainan, Taiwanese Opera troupes began to emerge. Plots and stage sets were improved, artistic and music capacity was further enriched. Female actors were allowed to act in Taiwanese Opera troupes. Because female actors demonstrated their potential in delivering the subtlety and delicacy of the script through their voice and aesthetic movements, henceforward, the “weeping tune” （kau diao）was produced. Scripts began to include more tragicomic contents, which was appealing to a large amount of female audience. Later, “Dou Ma Tune”（Do Ma Diao）was introduced to Taiwanese Opera from Xiaman. Dou Ma Tune enriched the music diversity of Taiwanese Opera. Since a vast amount of people in Taiwan speak Taiwanese, Taiwanese Opera possesses extremely powerful linguistic influence on Taiwan society. In addition, inspiring plots, three-dimensional stage sets, and flexible application of apparatus, these elements together had drawn a tremendous attention and thus became popular among Taiwanese people.

After the July Seventh Lugouqiao Incident in 1937, Japanese government changed its governing attitude toward its colony, Taiwan. Japanese government forced Taiwanese to learn to be Japanese, to pledge loyalty to Japanese Emperor. Speaking Taiwanese was strictly forbidden; therefore, Taiwanese Opera was banned. The number of troupes sharply declined. The remaining troupes struggled to survive by playing the drama in Japanese, wearing kimonos instead of traditional Chinese outfit. This is called the “ameliorated play”. In 1941, with the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japanese government executed the “assimilation policy”. Only officially approved theatric troupes were allowed to perform, and to perform only in Japanese. All theater houses were limited under allotment system. Because of such restriction, Taiwanese Opera was strongly suppressed.

After World War II was over, Taiwan was finally free from the rule of Japanese government. Taiwanese Opera revived and took Taiwanese people by storm. From 1949 to 1956, there were approximately five hundred Taiwanese Opera troupes in Taiwan. Most of them perform in theater houses, only a few of them perform on open-air stages. During this period, temples hiring Taiwanese Opera troupe to perform in recompense to God hadn’t become a fad, while Taiwanese Opera hadn’t absorbed any elements from Luantan shows, Taiwanese Opera was seldom played on open-air stages. From 1954, American western movies and Japanese Samurai movies were major box-office hit. Many theater houses were remodeled into movie theaters. TV began to enter each household to dominate each family’s entertainment; fewer and fewer people went to theater houses to watch Indoor-Stage shows. Thus, in order to survive, most of the Taiwanese Opera troupes transformed into Outdoor-Stage performance and subordinated to temple fairs. Since then, Indoor-Stage Taiwanese Opera was extinguished from the society.
The first Taiwanese Opera ever made into a movie was Shiue Ping-guei & Wang Bau-chuan in 1955. From 1955 to 1959, Taiwanese Opera movies were massively produced. It was the golden era for Taiwanese Opera movies. At the same time, lots of people also listened to Taiwanese Opera through radio broadcast, especially in the 1960s. Not until televised Taiwanese Opera emerged, did Taiwanese Opera radio broadcast and movies start to decline.

In October, 1962, TTV（Taiwan Television Enterprise）produced and broadcasted the first televised Taiwanese Opera. This initiated the era of televised Taiwanese Opera. In the beginning, TV was not as popular as radio; therefore radio broadcasted Taiwanese Opera remained a lot more popular than the televised one. However, in 1966, TTV presented a new Taiwanese Opera featuring the male lead enacted by Miss Yang Li-Hua. Her unique charm, handsome stage appearance as well as her excellent performance made her the most celebrated actress of Taiwanese Opera. This is the first peak era of televised Taiwanese Opera.
Later, when CTV（China Television Company）and CTS（Chinese Television System）were founded, they immediately produce their own Taiwanese Opera programs. In 1972, TTV recruited the current best leading actresses of Taiwanese Opera from these three TV networks, such as, Yang Li-Hua, Yeh Ching, Lin Mei-jau, Huang Shiang-lian. Together they made Xing Qi Xia Wu Yi（Chivalry & Justice）, which was extremely successful and popular. The period from 1972 to 1977 was the golden era of televised Taiwanese Opera. However, Government Information Office set limits on Minan（Taiwanese）programs, the production of televised Taiwanese Opera were diminished and for one year, no Taiwanese Opera program could be seen on TV.
In 1979, TV stations began to produce Taiwanese Opera programs. From then on, Taiwanese Opera programs went through different stages of innovation. These days, different kinds of media and channels offer viewers a variety of choices. Televised Taiwanese Opera could no longer regain its overwhelming popularity as it used to. From then on, Taiwanese Opera, again, had to find a new way to survive. This time, Taiwanese Opera develops into modern theater houses, displaying its new delicacy and refinement.

In 1973, the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan was founded. The Cloud Gate infused the functioning system and technique of western theater house into Taiwan’s theatric culture, and thus changed Taiwanese people’s habit in watching art performances. In 1979, a Peking Opera named Madame White Snake was performed in Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, which was the first traditional theatric form to perform on the stage of national theater. In 1981, Miss Yang Li-hua was invited to perform the play Yu Niang in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. Followed by the Ming Hwa Yuan’s performance in Nationwide Cultural and Arts Season. The Ming Hwa Yuan also enacted its large drama Ji Gung Huo Fo（Living Buddha, The Lord Ji） on the stage of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. Taiwanese Opera demonstrated its powerful delicacy in the following elements: the innovated theme, well-knitted plot, spectacular stage sets, abundant music accompaniment as well as the perfect performance of all troupers.