MEI, Shaowu (ed.).

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Mei Lanfang. First edition of this bilingual photographic tribute to Mei Lanfang, one of the "greatest actors who ever performed on the twentieth-century international stage" (Min, p. 1). This copy was presented by Zheng Yan, a senior official at the China National Beijing Opera Academy, to Martin Campbell-White, the internationally acclaimed manager of conductors and artists including Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Andrew Davis. Mei (1891-1964) was a nandan, a male actor specializing in female roles, whose performances were heralded globally by critics such as Stanislavski and Eisenstein. He began his training aged seven and, by the early Republican period, he had become one of China's most prominent performers on account of his exquisite singing and strikingly feminine appearance. His fame continued to grow as he embraced new theatrical artforms born out of both the May Fourth Movement and the introduction to China of Western proscenium arch theatre design. In the 1920s, he turned back to more traditional Chinese operatic forms, emphasizing "patterned dance styles... integrated with conventionalized music consisting of prescribed singing, tunes, and melodies" (Min, p. 7). He almost single-handedly established Peking Opera as China's national dramatic form.A printed presentation sheet, signed by Zheng (d. 2023) and dated May 2005, is affixed to the front free endpaper. Zheng spent 40 years as a Peking Opera performer and specialized in playing chou clown roles. After retiring from

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