On the afternoon of September 12, the press conference for the 2025 Anqing Huangmei Opera Festival Week was held in Hefei. 

Positioned as a "high-standard, high-level, and high-popularity" event, the festival week centered on the theme "Opera Rhythms of the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers, Cultural Benefits for the People" and featured a series of exciting activities across five major segments, showcasing the inclusivity and diverse charm of the grand occasion.

The opening ceremony, scheduled for the evening of September 26, brought together renowned traditional opera performers and outstanding young actors from across the province. They presented classic excerpts alongside outstanding newly created pieces from recent years, accompanied by live stage bands, demonstrating the new vitality of Huangmei opera's inheritance and development in the new era. 

As part of the Huangmei opera cultural research activities, the Huangmei Opera Development Academic Seminar took place from September 25 to 28. The "Inheritance and Innovation of Huangmei Opera Culture" advanced training workshop was successfully held in Anqing in late August. Additionally, the "Opera in the Cloud" Huangmei Opera Online Video Exhibition, running from September to October, collaborated with online platforms to launch a nationwide campaign encouraging opera enthusiasts and netizens to participate in creating short videos of Huangmei opera.

In the opera exchange activities, the highlight is the Outstanding Huangmei Opera Plays Exhibition, which serves as the core segment of the festival week. Scheduled from September 26 to October 8, it featured 18 major productions performed in rotation. The Anhui Huangmei Opera Short Plays Exhibition, making its debut this year, has established a provincial-level platform for short Huangmei operas. A selection of 20 short plays were presented in three performances from September 22 to 24. The 9th Shipai Opera Gathering were held from September 28 to October 8 in the Shipai Opera Culture Town, Huaining County, inviting outstanding productions of Huangmei opera, Peking opera, Hui opera, and more for a centralized showcase. The Yangtze River Delta and Greater Bay Area Opera Exchange and Huangmei Opera Tour adheres to the principle of "reaching out" and "inviting in," organizing Huangmei opera exchange performances throughout the year in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, and other regions.

In the integrated development activities, the Huangmei opera micro-film, short drama, and short video exhibition collaborates with mainstream media and professional institutions to multi-form promote the organic integration of Huangmei opera with new technologies, new business forms, new models, and new media. The "Huangmei Opera + Tourism" integration continues across the entire region of Anqing City, enhancing the "Anqing, More than Anqing" cultural tourism promotion brand. Initiatives such as the "When the Huangpu River Meets Huangmei Opera" Anqing cultural tourism promotion event were being carried out. A variety of rich cultural and tourism activities are also organized, including the "Joyful Huangmei Opera" competition and the cultural benefiting the people consumption season.

To enhance the influence and participation of the events, the festival week also employed multiple offline and online promotion channels.

The 2025 Anqing Huangmei Opera Festival Week focuses on showcasing the latest achievements in Huangmei opera development, inheriting and promoting Huangmei opera culture, and promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of outstanding traditional Chinese culture. It aims to better achieve cultural benefiting the people and boost consumption, presenting main characteristics such as artistry, popularity and integration.

For this festival week, the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism organized the application and selection of participating productions for the first time. There was an active response from 33 cultural institutions across 7 cities—Chuzhou, Ma'anshan, Wuhu, Xuancheng, Chizhou, Anqing, and Huangshan—as well as 5 provincial-level troupes and colleges. A total of 23 major productions and 35 short plays were declared for participation. The number of applying units and declared productions set a new record in the history of the Huangmei Opera Festival Week. The selected performances represent the best chosen from many good options, fully demonstrating the latest achievements in the inheritance and development of Huangmei opera across the province and thoroughly reflecting its artistry.

Highlighting its popular appeal is a major feature of this year's festival week. Adhering to the principle of making culture benefit and serve the people, regular activities such as "Renowned Opera Artists Grassroots Tours," "Opera in Schools," "Village Galas Across Four Seasons," and "Village Songs Across Four Seasons" have been organized. Efforts have been made to encourage workers to learn Huangmei opera singing and the public to learn Huangmei opera square dances, ensuring that high-quality performances are accessible to communities and allowing everyone to participate in the "Joyful Huangmei Opera" experience.

Furthermore, the festival week fully demonstrates its integrative nature. By promoting the "opera plus" initiative, it persists in the integrated development of cultural tourism and commerce, empowering the city and boosting the economy. The event fosters the concept of "tourists becoming traditional opera fans, and traditional opera fans becoming tourists," continuously building the cultural tourism brand of "Golden Week, Huangmei Opera: Sightseeing by Day, Traditional Opera by Night." Leveraging the festival week, efforts have been intensified to showcase special agricultural products, demonstrate intangible cultural heritage skills, and promote cultural and creative products, thereby expanding the comprehensive benefits of the event and driving high-quality economic and social development.

As a major artistic event co-organized by the provincial and municipal governments, the Anqing Huangmei Opera Festival Week has been held eight times since 2013. It has now become an important complement to the China (Anqing) Huangmei Opera Art Festival, a key platform for Huangmei opera exchange, an annual artistic celebration, and a popular festival of cultural enrichment. It has successfully established the integrated cultural tourism brand of "Golden Week, Huangmei Opera: Sightseeing by Day, Traditional Opera by Night," making the "Anqing—City of Opera" signature brand shine even brighter.

Source: anhuinews.com

             Department of Culture and Tourism of Anhui Province 

             Anqing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism