CHINA:The curtain is about to fall on Beijing's oldest opera house as China's unstoppable push for development forces the closure of the Ming-dynasty Peking Opera stage at the Guanghe tea house.
The Guanghe is to Beijing what the Gaiety is to Dublin.
It is famous as the venue where the Peking Opera master, Mei Lanfang, launched his illustrious career at just 10 years of age, over 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.
Paintings of the Guanghe theatre in its heyday during the 19th century show an ornate stage covered by a gabled Chinese roof, with dramatically upturned corners supported by heavy 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 of the opera houses closed. During that time, leading opera singers were dragged through the streets by chairman Mao Zedong's Red Guards who condemned the opera stars as producers of "spiritual pollution".
Since China began to open up in the 1980s, there are a few opera houses around, but many are being rebuilt for tourists.
These days the Guanghe is a shadow of its former self and it looks more like a shabby cinema. It was declared unsafe in 2000. 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, and 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 located south of the Forbidden City. But few remain as they have fallen prey to dwindling audiences and a massive redevelopment plan, which has destroyed the hutong laneway system that fanned out through the ancient city, as well 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.