Mei Lanfang, A Famous Actor

In the course of the development of Beijing Opera, a number of talented actors created highly distinctive singing and acting techniques, adapting the traditional skills learned from their masters to take advantage of their own abilities and giving rise to different schools. The very influential Mei School, for instance, was founded by the most famous Beijing Opera actor of modern times, Mei Lanfang, who made continuous improvement to singing, movements, recitative, music, costumes and make-up in the course of many years of stage performance. His repertoire included A Woman Feigning Madness, The Drunken Beauty and The King Bids Farewell to His Concubine.