Siping Opera is also known as 四评戏, 四坪戏, 四棚戏 and 四蓬戏 in Chinese. It was evolved from Yiyang tune, one of the four tunes popular in the middle Ming Dynasty. During Jia Jing years, it was popular in Huizhou region (current Shexian County, Anhui), introduced to Zhenghe in the deep Beidashan, eastern Fujian in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties and has been completely passed on up to now with the historical original appearance in Yangyuan Town, Zhenghe County and Longtan Town, Pingnan County.

There are dozens of traditional plays of Siping Opera at present, including The Romance of A Hairpin, The White Hare, The Story of Baiyue Kiosk, A Story of Killing the Dog, The Story of Pipa, Su Qin, Hero Carnival, The Story of Jiulong Kiosk, Chen Shimei, Meet in the Wood and Eight Diagrams. Its high tune is of primitive simplicity and rough, fresh and sweet, elegant and pleasant and at the end of a sentence, holding tune is used for vocal accompaniment. The spoken part is recited by "Tuguan dialect", a language between mandarin and local dialect, commonly known as "Jiangzhengzi". According to survived Siping Opera plays, only light and grave notes are marked, but not the singing notes. With music score absent but tune available, its singing tune has been carried on from generation to generation completely by the oral form. Its roles and professions had been relatively complete during the reign of Emperor Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty. In performance, the bearded male character is elegant, the female lead heroine is exquisite, the male character with a painted face is rude and the clown is funny, leading to the unique performance style of Siping Opera. Performance actions include jumping, miving, rolling and fighting, etc. As the drum melody changes in varied rates, the hands and feet of different roles and professions follow the stipulated pithy formula. Foiled by such percussion instruments as drum, cymbals and Bangu (a small drum for marking time) and dominated by drum, the ancient tradition of "one speaking joined by the mass" passed on from Yiyang tune has been developed. Siping Opera has better preserved the art form of common systematic tunes in the Ming Dynasty and is called as "the living fossil of China's opera" by drama experts. The backward and harsh mountainous conditions have made it really hard to survive. Under the impact of the economic trend, the inheritance of this ancient drama has been exposed to severe problems and thus immediate measures should be taken to resurrect it.

Siping Opera has been incorporated in the List of National Nonmaterial Cultural Heritage.