Beijing to destroy its oldest Peking Opera house
Posted: 24 April 2007 0807 hrs

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BEIJING - Beijing planners have decided to raze a Ming Dynasty theatre in the heart of the old city that once provided a historic backdrop to the famous Peking Opera, state press said Monday.

The Guanghe Theatre, which sits in Beijing's historic Qianmen quarter, will meet the wrecking ball, making way for the capital's "remorseless" onslaught of modernisation, Xinhua news agency reported.

"It appears that yet another of the country's cultural heirlooms is doomed," the state-run agency lamented.

Culture officials hope to build a new modern theatre in the district that will be a professional venue "like those on Broadway in the United States," the report said.

The Guanghe theatre was where Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang started his illustrious career over 100 years ago, later becoming one of the genre's greatest stars.

Mei was immortalised in the award-winning film by Chen Kaige, "Farewell My Concubine."

The theatre was built in the final years of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and served as a mansion for a rich merchant before it was turned into one of the capital's many Peking Opera houses.

It continued to stage operas into the 1970s, but fell into use as audiences dwindled. In 2000 it was declared an unsafe building, the report said.

The Qianmen quarter, which sits south of Tiananmen Square, is going through a period of drastic remodelling with hundreds of "hutong" courtyard homes demolished to make way for commercial buildings and roads widened to accommodate the city's increasing traffic. - AFP/ir