IF, one evening at the theater, you are seated at a table, rather than in a row of seats, and sipping tea and eating peanuts as your neighbors stamp their feet and shout their approval, the chances are you are watching a Peking Opera performance. Nowadays several Beijing theaters show a daily pastiche of extracts from famous operas, featuring acrobatics and martial arts (but not too much singing) that cater to the tastes of Western tourists. Chinese Opera lovers disdain such performances because they lack artistic authenticity. They regard the Westerners that so enjoy such “military” operas as slow-witted children ignorant of the degree of artistry with which Peking Opera is imbued. Theatergoers with a true appreciation of this extraordi- IF, one evening at the theater, you are seated at a table, rather than in a row of seats, and sipping tea and eating peanuts as your neighbors stamp their feet and shout their approval, the chances are you are watching a Peking Opera performance Nowadays several Beijing theaters show a daily pastiche of extracts from famous operas, featuring acrobatics and martial arts (but not too much singing) that cater to the tastes of Western tourists. Chinese Opera lovers disdain such performances because they lack artistic authenticity. They regard the Westerners that so enjoy such “military ” operas as slow-witted children ignorant of the degree of artistry with which Peking Opera is imbued. Theatergoers with a true appreciation of this extraordi-