Peking opera has entertained audiences for more than 200 years with its elaborate costumes, ear-splitting arias, dazzling martial arts and musical dialogue.
Most Peking Operas are unintelligible to the untrained viewer, but they are usually based on folk tales, famous novels and fairy tales and are a pleasure to
watch if you know the basic story. The theatre has subtitle message so even if you don’t know the story you can still follow along. Characters are
classified into three basic categories: the male roles, called “sheng”, female roles called “dan”, and clown called “chou”. The nature of each
character is shown through the different colors of the facial makeup. For instance, red usually means evil or sly, and black and white face makeup denotes
authority.
In the early days of the 20th century, millions went to the opera house more like a teahouse or a variety theatre-and largely through the acting genius of
the late Mei langfang(1894-1961).Peking opera even influenced western artists such as Charles Spencer Chaplin(1889-1977)in England and playwright Bertold
Bercht(1898-1956)in Germany.