Peking opera is the Chinese opera genre famous for elaborate makeup, acrobatics, and stylized singing in Beijing.
The genre combines singing, spoken dialogue, acting, martial arts, dance, and instrumental music. Performers use highly codified movements rather than realistic naturalism. Costumes, headdresses, gestures, and painted facial designs help audiences identify characters and their moral or social qualities.
Peking opera developed in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the merging of regional theatrical traditions. It became especially influential in Beijing and later spread throughout China. The principal role categories include sheng for male roles, dan for female roles, jing for painted-face roles, and chou for comic roles.
Peking opera is also called jingju in Chinese. It is different from Kunqu, an older opera tradition associated with the Kunshan region and Suzhou, and from regional forms such as Cantonese opera.