Beijing Opera is China’s 300-400 opera style most celebrated. Storylines reference many aspects of Chinese culture, and performance consists of beautifully painted sets, exquisite costumes, graceful gestures, martial arts, and, of course, opera singing. The Liyuan Theatre presents traditional opera excerpts designed in short programs while maintaining the original works’ essence.

Pekin Opera is a form of Chinese opera originally from the 18th century that combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance, and acrobatics. It arose in the late 18th century and started to be known in the West thanks to the awarded 1993 movie “Farewell My Concubine.” The performers have elaborate and colorful costumes and use the skills of speech, song, dance, and combat in movements that are symbolic and suggestive rather than realistic.

Liyuan Theater is the first tea house-style theater in Beijing, featuring eight immortal tables, covered bowls of tea, and Beijing snacks. It is also known as the Peking Opera of the Beijing Opera House. It has been 25 years since the start of gongs and opera performances on October 8th, 1990. Beijing Opera is performed every night here.

Every day, Chinese and foreign theater fans and tourists gather here to eat Beijing snacks, enjoy covered bowls of tea, listen to authentic Beijing opera, and experience the comfortable “old Beijing” life. Here, you can also watch actors put on makeup, take photos with them as a souvenir, and even try costumes and facial makeup in person to experience and interact, providing guests with a comprehensive and novel experience.

The Liyuan Theater is a performance venue jointly operated by the Qianmen Jianguo Hotel and the Beijing Peking Opera Theater. They have built a grand stage for Peking Opera to go global through strategic alliances and using Peking Opera culture as a medium. On this stage, many masters and famous actors of Peking Opera have made appearances and trained and promoted generations of new Peking Opera performers. They are pure and ugly and take turns appearing on stage; Singing, reciting, and fighting are all accurate skills. For 13 consecutive years, this place has been awarded “Best Evening Activity Place” in the Beijing Tourism Forbidden Cup.

Climbing the Great Wall, eating roast duck, and watching Peking Opera have become mandatory courses for foreign tourists visiting Beijing. According to statistics, one of every ten foreign tourists visiting Beijing visits the Liyuan Theater to watch Beijing Opera.

The Liyuan Theater has received 4.6 million Chinese and foreign guests and performed over 7100 times. Dozens of heads of state and government officials, including South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, former Japanese Prime Minister Junki Haibe, Peruvian President Fujimori, Estonian President Lennart Meri, and Belgian Senate Chairman Frank Svallen, have watched the world-renowned Chinese Peking Opera here.