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BEIJING - The fat lady is about to sing for Beijing's oldest opera house.
China's unstoppable long march to progress is bringing down the curtain on the Peking Opera stage at the Guanghe tea house, which dates from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) but has fallen victim to progress
and a growing fascination with Broadway shows.
The Guanghe theatre is famous as the venue where the Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang launched his illustrious career at just 10 years of age more than a century ago.
Mei played a girl weaver in an opera called Palace of Everlasting Youth: Secret Betrothal at the Magpie Bridge and it was for his ability to play female roles that he made his name.
Director Chen Kaige, who dealt with Peking Opera in his film Farewell, My Concubine, is working on a new film about Mei's life.
Paintings of the Guanghe theatre in its heyday during the 19th century show an ornate stage covered by a gabled Chinese roof, with upturned corners supported by wooden beams. There are tables and chairs on three sides of the stage inside a courtyard, where opera visitors could take tea and watch the dramas unfold.
Opera fans were a devoted bunch who applauded every gesture and pose, each imbued with huge significance. But the Cultural Revolution, which ran from 1966 until Chairman Mao Zedong's death in 1976, saw many opera houses closed. During that period, leading opera singers were dragged through the streets by Mao's Red Guards.
Since China began to open up in the 1980s, there have been a few opera houses around but many are rebuilt for tourists. The Guanghe showed movies, held ballroom dancing contests and even served time as a video game parlour. It has not hosted any Peking Opera since 1996.
These days the Guanghe is a shadow of its former self. It was declared unsafe in 2000 and is set to be bulldozed. A state-of-the-art replacement will be built elsewhere, according to culture officials.
"We intend to build a modern, professional venue like those on Broadway in the United States, where regular shows are offered all year round, and high-end performances can also take place," Ma Dekai, a construction chief at the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture, told Xinhua news agency.
The Guanghe building itself is at least 350 years old and was originally called Zhalou, or Zha building. Historians believe it was built and owned by a salt trader surnamed Zha during the Ming Dynasty.
The theatre part of the Guanghe opened during the reign of Qianlong (1711-1799), during the Qing dynasty.
Beijing once had about 40 opera houses, most of them located south of the Forbidden City. But few remain as they have fallen prey to dwindling audiences and a massive redevelopment plan. Other ancient icons have also been victims of the wrecking ball in the breakneck push for growth, such as the city walls which were destroyed after the Communists came to power in 1949 to make way for Soviet-style ring roads and the vast concrete precinct of Tiananmen Square.
- INDEPENDENT