Peking Opera tickets: Liyuan Theatre

What you see on a Liyuan night

The Liyuan doesn't stage one long opera. Its repertoire is built from zhezixi, single well-known scenes taken from longer works, and most nights put two or three of them together. That keeps the show to about an hour, which suits a first visit. Most of the audience are visitors from abroad, and the programmes are chosen with that in mind. The theatre was opened in October 1990 by the Qianmen Hotel and the Jingju Theater Company of Beijing, and that company is still the one on stage.

Show days and what's on

The theatre's own schedule lists one show a night, Wednesday to Saturday, from 19:30 to 20:30. The programme is published month by month and changes from night to night. In August 2026, for example, several nights paired Autumn River, The Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers and Farewell My Concubine, while other dates carried The Jade Bracelet or Stealing the Immortal Herb. The theatre adds that the final bill is whatever is actually performed on the night, so treat any published programme as a guide. Dates can shift from month to month, so check your evening in the date picker before you plan around it.

Read next: Peking Opera's Famous Stories: Farewell My Concubine

What this ticket includes

This is an entry ticket to the show, sold by a Beijing tour agency, Panda Happy Journey in China, rather than by the theatre. You choose your seat category when you book, and you can reserve now and pay later. Cancellation is free up to 24 hours before. The ticket comes with an English guidebook in PDF format, and before the curtain you can watch the performers putting on their make-up and costumes. There's no guide and no transport, so you make your own way to the hotel.

• Included: a ticket to the show, about one hour
• Included: an English PDF guidebook
• Included only with the dinner package: a traditional Beijing dinner
• Not included: a live guide, an audio guide, or hotel pickup and drop-off

Choosing a seat category

The auditorium seats 800 and is laid out like an old Beijing teahouse theatre. Some seats are set around baxian tables, square tables built for eight, where the audience can have tea and snacks during the show. Seat categories run from A down to D. The higher categories put you closer to the stage, and the cheaper ones watch from further back. Sit near the front if you want to see the painted faces and the embroidery in detail. If you're mainly there for the stage combat and the music, a rear seat works fine.

The dinner package

The second option pairs a category D seat with a traditional Beijing dinner, served at the theatre entrance before the show. You choose Beijing roast duck or a vegetarian meal. The dinner takes about two hours, so together with the show you're looking at roughly three hours, starting well before the 19:30 curtain. If you'd rather sit closer to the stage, book the standard ticket in a higher category and eat somewhere else first. The package doesn't let you combine dinner with a front seat.

Following the story

Peking Opera is sung and recited mainly in Beijing dialect, in language archaic enough that productions in China use electronic subtitles. At the Liyuan, screens in the hall show the lyrics in Chinese and English side by side. Read the English PDF guidebook before you arrive, because each excerpt drops you into the middle of a longer story. Knowing who is on stage helps most. The four role types, sheng, dan, jing and chou, each move, sound and are made up differently, and they are easy to tell apart once you know what to look for.

Read next: Peking Opera's Role Types: Sheng, Dan, Jing and Chou

Inside the theatre

The Liyuan takes up the ground floor of the hotel, in a hall that was once the hotel's assembly room and later a store room, before it became Beijing's first teahouse-style theatre. It has three parts: the performance hall, an exhibition room and a shop. Couplets by the dramatist Weng Ouhong, written out by the calligrapher Liu Bingsen, frame the stage. Eight large opera masks and painted screens showing characters from 14 operas surround the seats. The exhibition room traces more than 200 years of Peking Opera, and in the shop you can buy opera crafts or have your photo taken in costume and face paint.

Getting there

The Liyuan is inside the Qianmen Jianguo Hotel at 175 Yong'an Road, Xicheng District, south of Tiananmen Square. The nearest metro station is Hufangqiao on Line 7. From Exit C, it's roughly a 10-minute walk to the hotel. City buses also stop at Yong'an Lu, by the hotel. If you take a taxi, show the driver the Chinese name and address. Once inside, the theatre and its box office are on the hotel's ground floor.

• Chinese name: 前门建国饭店 梨园剧场
• Address: 永安路175号, Xicheng District
• Metro: Line 7 to Hufangqiao, Exit C, then walk

Booking direct, and other stages in Beijing

You can also buy from the theatre itself, by phone or at the box office in the hotel. That makes sense if you speak Chinese or are already in Beijing. Booking this ticket ahead gets you an English booking, your own currency and free cancellation up to 24 hours before. If you want more than excerpts, Beijing's tourism board lists other stages for Peking Opera, with programmes aimed at Chinese audiences. Check each show's length and whether it has English subtitles before you book.

• Chang'an Grand Theatre: founded in 1937, reopened on Jianguomennei Street in 1996
• Mei Lanfang Grand Theatre: 980 seats, part of the China National Peking Opera Company
• Huguang Guild Hall: an old guildhall with its own opera stage, near Hufangqiao station

Who this isn't for

If you want a complete opera from start to finish, this isn't it, because the Liyuan shows excerpts. If your free evenings fall outside the theatre's Wednesday-to-Saturday schedule, check the date picker before you get attached to the idea. If you need hotel pickup or someone to explain the show in person, neither is included. And if you want dinner and a front seat on the same booking, this ticket can't do it, because the dinner package comes with a category D seat.