China has an ancient history and rich culture, in which Peking Opera holds a special place. It is recognized as a pearl of Chinese culture. 

Liyuan Theatre is the birthplace of Peking Opera, it is situated in Beijing Qianmen Jianguo Hotel (北京前门建国饭店) which can hold thousands of audience. Inside Liyuan theatre, you can sit around a Ba Xian Zhuo which is an old fashioned square table for eight people and enjoy the traditional Chinese tea with snacks as a local beijinger. If you want to learn more about Peking Opera, please come to Liyuan Theatre before 19:00 to see how the actors are made up in various facial painting on the stage, which is not allowed in other Opera House. 

All the Repertoires are carefully selected by Liyuan Theatre. <Eight Immortals Crossing Sea>, <The Crossroads>, <Autumn River>, <The Goddess of Heaven Scattering Flowers>, <Romance of the Jade Bracelet>, <Stealing Immortal Heaven-Grass>, <Havoc In Heaven> are the most popular shows. 

If it is difficult for you to understand, do not worry, there are English subtitles on the both sides of the stage which can help you easily followed the repertoire stories.

Now Peking Opera still enchants many Chinese people and foreigners with its unique charm.

About the show 

<Eight Immortals Crossing Sea> 

The eight immortals attended the birthday banquet of Queen Mother and got dead drunk. On their way home, they had to cross the raging East Sea. Each used his own skills and power to do it, which agitated the East Sea and the Fairy Goldfish. The Fairy Goldfish argued with the Eight Immortals; and the Eight Immortals felt indefensible and pretended to be drunk and fought with the Fairy Goldfish, but were defeated. They apologized to the Fairy Goldfish and then crossed the sea.

<The Crossroads>

<The Crossroads> describes Ren Tanghui fighting in the dark with the shopkeeper Liu Lihua, due to a misunderstanding while secretly protecting General Jiao Zan and staying overnight at Divergence.

<Havoc In Heaven >

The play was based on the famous Chinese classic “Journey to the West”. 

Sun WuKong went to the Dragon Palace to borrow weapons. The Dragon King was very contemptuous of him and tricked him into moving the ocean-quieting needle. Unexpectedly, Sun WuKong had great powers and turned the ocean-quieting needle into the magic cudgel.

The Dragon King Regretted, he went to the Heavenly Palace to request the Jade Emperor to arrest Sun WuKong. Li Changgeng offered advice and tricked Sun Wukong into raising horses in the heavenly stables. 

Sun WuKong saw through the secret, made a fuss over the heavenly stables and returned to Huaguo Mountain and set up the banner of "the Great Sage Equal to Heaven". 

Li Changgeng went to Huaguo Mountain and pretended to invite him to the banquet. Wukong came to the Heavenly Palace and learned from the fairy that he was not invited to attend the flat peach banquet. In a fit of rage, Wukong made a scene in Yaochi and ate a lof of golden elixir. 

The Jade Emperor dispatched Erlang God to capture Sun WuKong, because he ate golden elixir, his body was strong as iron, invulnerable.The Jade Emperor put him into Lord Lao Zi's eight trigrams furnace and wanted to burn him to ashes, but Sun WuKong still jumped out of the furnace actively. 

The Heavenly Palace concentrated forces, under the leadership of King Li, fought with Sun WuKong. In the end, they were badly defeated by the witty and brave Sun WuKong. Sun WuKong returned amidst songs of triumph amid the cheers of the little monkeys.

<Goddess of Heaven Scattering Flowers>

Sakyamuni heard that Vimalakirti was sick and asked Manjuari to lead all the disciples to see Vimalakirti. and asked the goddess to scatter flowers to bring fortune to him. The goddess departed from All Fragrant Land and traveled a long distance Four Sramaneras discussed Dharma and took care of Vimalakirti,and manjuari meditated with him.Then he goddess came and scattered flowers.

<Stealing Immortal Herbs>

This is an episode of “The Romance of the White Snake”. On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, Xu Xian advised his wife, Bai Suzhen (the white Snake Lady, to drink some medicated wine. At her dead drunkenness, Bai showed herself in her true colors: a white snake. At the sight of this, Xu died of fright. To revive her husband ,Bai went to the Forbidden Mountains to steal magic herbs.There she founght with the guardscrane boys and deer boys-and found the herbs she wanted and revived Xu.

<Pick Up the Jade Bracelet>

During the Ming Dynasty, a young scholar named Fu Peng admired and fell in love with Sun Yujiao,a beautiful young girl. He deliberately dropped his jade bracelet in front of Sun’s house. This, however, was seen by Madam Liu, a matchmaker, who later asked Sun for an embroidered shoe as a love token, and promised to act as matchmaker for the two youths. 

<Hu Village>

This play is drawn from the Chinese classic“Outlaw of the Marshes”. Song Jiang led the rebels of Liangshan Mountain to attack Zhu Village. Hu sanniang, the fiancée of Zhu Biao, of the neighboring Hu Village, came to the rescue and captured Wang Ying, one of the rebels. He was later was captured himself by Lin Chong, another of the rebels. This play lays much emphasis on the singing and acting of the lady warrior as well as on the dances of the Peking Opera. 

<Autumn River>

In Song Dynasty, Scholar Pan Bizheng, nephew of the old nun, while preparing for the official test at the nunnery, became acquainted and fell in love with Chen Miaochang, a young and well-educated nun. The old nun was furious and forbade them to continue their relationship,finally forcing Pan Bizheng to leave for Linan. After hearing this, Chen ran away from the nunnery in pursuit of Pan Bizheng. By the side of the Qiujiang River, she looked anxiously for a ferry boat. She met a jocular, elderly boatman, who intentionally delayed her with tricks. At last, the boatman helped Chen Miaochang catch up with her lover. 

<Farewell My Concubine>

The opera Farewell My Concubine, made by Mei Lanfang, tells a historical story: At the end of Qin dynasty, Chu and Han had a fight. Han’s king ordered Li Zuoche to defraud Xiang Yu, trapping Xiang Yu in the GaiXia. Xiang Yu couldn’t make a breakthrough, and heard Chu song from all sides. He suspected that the Chu army had surrendered to Han, so he drank and said farewell to his concubine Yu Ji in the camp. Yu Ji cut the throat by Xiang’s sword. Finally, Xiang Yu failed and threw himself on a sword. 

<Stopping the horse>

In BeiSong Dynasty, Yang Ba-jie(the 8th sister), under the orders of She Taijun (Grandma she) to dress as a man, sneaked into Liao barracks to collect military information. On her way home, she was stopped by innkeeper Jiao Guang-pu, soliciting her into his inn. Thingking that her true identity had been discovered,Yang Ba-jie wanted to kill the innkeeper. After a struggle,she discovered that Jiao Guang-pu was a general of the NanSong Dynasty staying in the Liao Kingdom because of war.With only one pass permit, Yang Bajie asked him to pretend to be her groom, and they went back together to NanSong hometown.