Bold translation project to bring Peking Opera to a global audience

BEIJING - Foreign fans are always impressed by Peking Opera's elegant costumes, startling makeup and graceful movements but few if any know what the performers are singing about.

Sun Ping, dean of the Institute of Arts at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), is trying to solve this problem by leading a groundbreaking project to translate 100 plays of classical Peking Opera into foreign languages.

Sun said the project aims to make the entire performance art of Peking Opera easily accessible to foreign audiences, providing not only literal translations of the text but also explanations of the artistic rendition such as costumes, typical make-up for different roles, theatrical arrangements and actors' symbolic actions.