In mainland China, revolutionary operas or model operas (Chinese: 样板戏; pinyin: yangban xi) were a series of shows planned and engineered during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) by Jiang Qing, the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong. They were considered revolutionary and modern in terms of thematic and musical features when compared with traditional Chinese operas. Many of them were adapted to film.

Originally, eight revolutionary operas (Chinese: 八个样板戏; pinyin: Ba Ge Yangban Xi) were produced, eighteen by the end of the period. Instead of the "emperors, kings, generals, chancellors, maidens, and beauties" of the traditional Peking opera, which was banned as "feudalistic and bourgeois," they told stories from China's recent revolutionary struggles against foreign and class enemies. They glorified the People's Liberation Army and the bravery of the common people, and showed Mao Zedong and his thought as playing the central role in the victory of communism in China. Although they originated as operas, they soon appeared on LPs, in comic books (lianhuanhua), on posters, postcards, and stamps; on plates, teapots, wash basins, cigarette packages, vases, and calendars. They were performed or played from loudspeakers in schools, factories, and fields by special performing troupes. The eight model operas dominated the stage in all parts of the country during these years, leading to the joke "Eight hundred million people watched eight shows."

Precursors of revolutionary opera existed during the Republican era, when Nationalist officials and rural reformers such as the Mass Education Movement pushed for various opera reform initiatives that sought to use theatre performances to inculcate their desired objectives of abolishing certain traditional customs and strengthening national identity. Nationalist officials also coerced local village leaders to replace religious festivals with reform opera through police involvement. The Communists only began to use opera as a method of mass mobilization in the late 1940s when they began land reform programs in areas under their control.

Jiang Qing was the chief advocate and engineer of the transformation from traditional operas to revolutionary ones, and chose the Peking opera as her "laboratory experimentation" for accomplishing this radical change in theater art. The traditional Peking opera was revolutionized in both form and content. Eight model plays were produced in the first three years of the Cultural Revolution. They consisted of five modern operas (The Legend of the Red Lantern, Shajiabang, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, and On the Docks), two ballets (Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl), and one symphony (also Shajiabang, which is more precisely a cantata).

The official versions of the operas were all Peking operas and were produced by either the China Peking Opera House or the Shanghai Peking Opera House, although many of them were subsequently adapted to local provincial types of operas. The ballets were produced by either the National Ballet of China or the Shanghai Ballet Company. Shajiabang was musically expanded to a symphony with a full Western orchestra, a format similar to the ninth symphony of Beethoven, with an overture and 8 movements. The Legend of the Red Lantern was also adapted to a piano-accompanied cantata by the pianist Yin Chengzong, which was basically a cycle of arias excerpted from the opera.

After 1969 several other model operas were produced, including Azalea Mountain, Battle in the Plains, and Bay of Panshi, following the original model in content and form. However it was the original eight plays that were most commonly performed. Toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, the ballet Red Detachment of Women was adapted to a Peking opera, while the Peking opera The Azalea Mountain was adapted to a ballet. These did not have a chance to become as popular as their earlier versions, and the ballet version of The Azalea Mountain was never officially released.

Model operas were performed on stages, broadcast on the radio, made into films, and sung by millions. They were the only form of mass theatrical entertainment in China at the time. Unlike European opera, which was essentially entertainment for the elite, revolutionary opera had become a popular political art. Many ordinary Chinese citizens were familiar with the arias in these model operas and would sing them at home or on the streets. Mobile film units brought cinematic recordings of the operas into the countryside and played an important role in popularizing and standardizing the art form. The revolutionary operas were regarded as some of the newborn socialist things (shehuizhuyi xinsheng shiwu) arising during the Cultural Revolution.

During the Cultural Revolution, one way China promoted its policy of state feminism was through revolutionary opera. Most of the eight model dramas in this period featured women as their main characters. The narratives of these women protagonists begin with them oppressed by misogyny, class position, and imperialism before liberating themselves through the discovery of their own internal strength and the Communist Party. Villains in the revolutionary operas were consistently male.