The white-haired girl, a rural girl named Xi 'er, fled into the mountains after being oppressed and insulted by the landlord, thus becoming a white-haired girl, and later gained a new legend in the new society. This play embodies the theme of "The old society forced people into ghosts, and the new society turned ghosts into people".
In opera music, on the one hand, it draws lessons from the experience of western operas, on the other hand, it adopts various folk tones as the basis of opera music, which successfully solves the problem of shaping characters with music in large-scale operas. Almost every character has a unique musical image, which successfully draws lessons from the techniques of leading themes in western operas, as well as the techniques of harmony, polyphony, chorus, duet and orchestral orchestration, and creatively uses the forms of singing and white in China's operas.
Opera is based on real stories in real life. It happened in a village in Hebei province on 1935. Yang Bailao, a tenant farmer, was unable to repay the debt of Huang Shiren, the landlord, and was forced to put his handprint on the deed of selling women, so he committed suicide by drinking brine on New Year's Eve. Our daughter went to Huang's home, was tortured by Huang's mother and raped. When Huang's mother learned that her son was pregnant, she wanted to sell him to a trafficker. Aunt Zhang got the news and helped her escape from the Huang family. Xi 'er fled to the mountains and lived a savage life, relying on offerings and wild fruits in the temple to satisfy his hunger. His hair was all white and he was mistaken by the villagers as a "white-haired fairy".
Two years later, the village was liberated by the Eighth Route Army, and the son was reunited with the young farmer Wang who joined the Eighth Route Army after being driven away. Huang Shiren and his lackey Mu Renzhi were publicly tried by the masses, and two criminals were punished by law.