Abstract: At the beginning of the 20th century, various local operas flourished and gradually moved from the countryside to the urban stage. In the process from the rise to maturity of these local small operas, Peking Opera, Kun Opera and other large operas played an important catalytic role. It was precisely because of the supplies from the big operas that the local small operas could accelerate their growth, and rapidly evolved from simple singing and dancing to opera forms which can perform complex narratives. In this process, the local small operas changed into mature operas, while the big operas also completed the domestication of the local small operas. This paper takes the development of Jiangsu small local operas in the early 20th century as the starting point, and studies the domestication process of Jiangsu small local operas in the early 20th century from the perspective of influences of Peking Opera, Hui Opera and Kun Opera on Yang opera, Su opera, Huai opera and Xi opera.

Key words: the big operas, small local operas, domestication, Jiangsu local operas