Costumes and props of Peking Opera are displayed in the newly renovated theater. Zhang Zixuan / China Daily

AT A GLANCE

• The Garden of Virtuous Harmony was constructed from 1891 to 1895 upon the ruins of the Hall of Cheerful Spring (Yi Chun Tang), which Emperor Qianlong (1711-99) built for his mother in 1749 and was destroyed by fire in 1844.

• It cost 710,000 taels of silver (about 26 tons) to build the entertainment site for Empress Dowager Cixi.

• Every time Cixi visited the Summer Palace, she watched operas at the grand theater in the garden, from the second day of her arrival. Every year she spent about 40 days in the garden. She even performed in person when she was in a good mood. Cixi watched operas there for the last time 35 days before her death.

• In the 1950s the garden had its first repair. In 1984 the second repair converted some buildings into exhibition spaces.