China National Opera House

For seventy years the company had no theatre of its own. Established in Beijing in 1952, with a predecessor troupe that had performed yangge dramas in Yan'an during the 1940s, the China National Opera House worked in borrowed halls until 2022, when the purpose-built house on Dongzhong Street in the Dongcheng district opened to the public — 41,000 square metres over eight floors above ground and four below, gold the dominant colour, and an interior that sets balconies and boxes in the European manner within a Chinese frame. Its orchestra pit is the largest in the country, and it is the only opera house in China built to that galleried plan. The repertoire ranges from 'Carmen', 'Aida' and 'Rigoletto' to Chinese works written for the company, and the building now houses all of it, along with a choir, a symphony orchestra and the workshops.