Dress rehearsal of Peking Opera Farewell My Concubine was taken place at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York on Thursday night.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

Hu said that Chinese opera was performed in gardens in the earliest of times, "so here we just bring the Peking opera back to its origin."

"And this piece of opera is performed after the great exhibition Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 BC - AD 220), the histories collided here, I think the performance is like a perfect ending for the exhibition," Hu added.

Presented by the Shanghai Peking Opera Company, the performance features two of China's most noted Peking Opera artists — Shi Yihong and Shang Changrong. Twelve performances will be presented through September 24.

The staging of Farewell My Concubine also coincides with the exhibition From the Imperial Theater: Chinese Opera Costumes of the 18th and 19th Centuries, according to Lu Pengliang, a curator with the museum's department of Asian art.

Drawn entirely from the museum's collection, the exhibition features examples of theatrical garments used in performances in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) court. The exhibition will be on view until Oct 9.

Zhang Ruinan in New York contributed to this story.