A Peking opera fan recognises the characters making their entrée onto the stage even before they open their mouths, as their costuming and make-up already reveal crucial information about them. Colors. In Beijing opera, the female characters are called “Tan” or “Dan” ( … The first five characters list the five role categories. The character roles in Peking opera are finely and strictly differentiated into fixed types. He was, after all, the first to perform with his company away from China, and achieved extraordinary success in countries like Japan (1919 and 1924), … Dan is the general name for female roles in Chinese opera, often referring to leading roles.They may be played by male or female actors. He was born in Anhui in 1811 and trained in the art of drama by his uncle. A well-known artist of the time was Cheng Changgeng . I can’t guarantee I am completely correct, but hopefully to be nearly “right” as they are usually seen in the TV. The ten Chinese characters shown on left are from a song sung in a Chinese New Year Eve television program. In Peking Opera,lianpucolors are of great importance in revealing the age, profession and personality of a character.Originally, only three colors were used -- red, white and black -- each with its own symbolic meaning. The costumes are yellow, the movements are small, and the singing is pure and high pitched. Qingyi is the most important role in Peking Opera, playing characters that are dignified, serious, and decent, mostly wives or mothers. Female roles are generally known as dan and male roles as sheng, but male clowns are known as chou. A chou, depicted by a patch of white on the face, is a humorous character. Beijing Opera is a synthesis of stylized action, singing, dialogue, mime, acrobatic fighting and dancing to represent a story or depict different characters and their feelings of gladness, anger, sorrow, happiness, surprise, fear and sadness. In the early years of Peking opera, all dan roles were played by men, but this practice is no longer common in any Chinese opera genre. The characters may be loyal or treacherous, beautiful or ugly, good or bad. The Peking Opera often changed its repertoire to avoid censorship because of its immoral or subversive character. The rest tells what roles appear in the plays, from the powerful supernatural beings to animals like tigers and dogs. Zheng Wun with a green pointed three-tile face plays a general. The best known name associated with Peking Opera is Mei Lanfang (1894 – 1961), not just in China, but around the world. The Beijing Opera repertoire runs to more than 1,000 items, all of which tell and retell touching stories of sorrow, happiness, separation, and reunion. A green face tells the audience that the character is impulsive and violent and depicts surly stubbornness, impetuosity and a total lack of self-restraint. It probably says everything about the roles in Beijing Opera. Facial make-up can help cover defects to make the character better fit the plot. Chinese Opera Mask, Guan Yu. Red indicates devotion, courage bravery, uprightness, and loyalty. Peking opera uses exaggerated expressions and methods to build different types of figures and characters from facial features, hairstyles, headwear and artificial whiskers. Here I just introduce some famous Beijing opera characters that I saw in that conference. Furthermore, the active opera audience generally knows the repertory by heart and can thus concentrate on the actors’ interpretation. Chinese Opera Mask, Zheng Lun.