Chinese opera has a long history and unique charm and is an important carrier of traditional Chinese culture. So, the teaching requirements for opera courses have gradually increased to ensure the vigorous development and inheritance of opera culture. To adapt to the reform and development of opera course teaching, this paper analyzes the basic concepts of scaffolding theory. It constructs an optimized framework for teaching modes based on scaffolding theory. On this basis, combined with the needs of college opera courses, it builds the framework of the opera teaching system based on scaffolding theory. It proposes the unique “modern teacher-apprentice system” based on the studio for the teaching mode of opera. Through the empirical analysis of teaching opera courses in colleges and universities based on the scaffolding theory, it can be seen that in the teaching of nine types of opera, including Beijing opera, Sichuan opera, Gui opera, Kunqu opera, Huangmei opera, Yueju opera, Cantonese opera, Yu opera, and Flower Drum Opera, the learning effect of this paper’s teaching of opera courses improves by 0.37~1.1 points compared with that of the traditional teaching of opera. The student’s ability in all dimensions improves by an average of 1.087 points. In addition, during the analysis of teaching satisfaction, the average score of learning satisfaction was 1.037, indicating that students acknowledged the reform of teaching opera in this paper. This study has significant results in the reform of teaching opera courses, which provides a reference value for the reform of opera courses in colleges and universities.