The presentation, which lasts 30 minutes, is held every hour at Dehe Garden to give visitors a vivid experience in how ancient Chinese music was performed.

Yet, that is not the only thing worth seeing inside this Garden.

Sitting here, we can imagine Empress Dowager Cixi watching opera in this garden more than a century ago. During performances, the Empress often sat here in the Hall of Nurtured Joy, enjoying the show. Emperor Guangxu would sit outside.

Dehe Garden, constructed in 1892 at a cost of 1.6 million taels of silver, housed the largest stage in China at the time. It was built in honor of the Empress Dowager Cixi's sixtieth birthday. The grand theatre has three stories. From top to bottom, they represent heaven, Earth and the sky in between. The floors of each stage contain trapdoors, and under the last stage are a deep well and five ponds which amplify the sound effects through acoustic resonance and make water appear to spout from a dragon's mouth. Special effects could be performed from underneath the three stages. It was this "high-tech" that gave the theatre a unique position in ancient China.

Well, we'll leave you here with the song "Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye," or "A Moonlit Night On The Spring River." Bye for now.

 

Editor:Lu Jing