Mei Lanfang Memorial Hall

Introduction of Beijing Mei Lanfang Memorial Hall

Located in Hutong area of central city in Beijing, this Memorial Hall is the Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang's former house, There have thousands of artifacts and mementos about Mei Lanfang's life and his roles in the Beijing Opera.

Mei Lanfang spent the last decade of his life in the house. After he died in 1961. Premier Zhou Enlai helped to establish the Mei Lanfang Memorial Hall. His wife and children contributed a lot of personal mementos such as scripts of plays, books, photographs, letters, painting, and lots of other things. While visiting the museum, you can appreciate the Chinese Opera performing artist Mei Lanfang and Peking Opera in general.

Mei Lanfang Memorial Hall have four showrooms. The first showroom in the outside yard displays selected pictures and materials about his artistic life and social activities. The inner second showroom displays some theatrical costumes, stage property, cultural relics and documents that he used in his career. The third showroom displays calligraphy, paintings, and gifts that people gave him. Another showroom is used for special exhibitions.

About Mei Lanfang
Born into a professional theater family in 1894, Mei Lanfang was known as the greatest Peking Opera actor who played female roles, in traditional Peking opera, there were only male actors but no actresses. In 1930s, Mei Lanfang toured overseas many times, and he helped to make Peking Opera known to Western entertainers such as Charlie Chaplin.

After 1949, he was honored by the government of China, he was named Director of the Beijing Opera Theater, Director of the Chinese Opera Research Institute, and Vice-chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. He also was named a government official. He is thought to have worked very hard, and he also studied martial arts. He developed what is known as the Mei Lanfang School of Peking Opera.

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