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Festival is Music to Beijing's Ears
Italian opera maestro Nello Santi will bring almost the full opera house of Arena di Verona to Beijing next month to take part in the 3rd Beijing Music Festival.
The 230-strong crew will stage Puccini's "Tosca" at the Poly Plaza's newly refurbished opera theatre to commemorate the centennial of the opera's world premier.
"The Italian artists will bring with them almost every piece of the costumes and set that Puccini approved 100 years ago," Yu Long, artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, said yesterday.
"Tosca" will be only one of the many highlights during the 25-day festival.
More than 1,000 musicians from around China and the world, including Martin Hackleman (horn), Charles Neidich (clarinet), Sarah Chang (violin) and Mischa Maisky (cello), have already been scheduled for 30 concerts and operas in the festival, organized by the Ministry of Culture and the Beijing Municipal Government.
Leading Chinese erhu player Song Fei and her colleagues from the Philharmonic Chinese Music Ensemble will perform traditional Chinese music.
Maestro Krzysztof Penderecki will conduct the Neue Philharmonic Westfalen Orchestra and the Warsaw Teatr Wielki Choir to premier in Asia his own seventh symphony "Seven Gates in Jerusalem."
Jamie Bernstein, daughter of Leonard Bernstein, the late American composer, will host two concerts in co-operation with the China National Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the 10th anniversary of her father's death. One of the concerts will be free of charge and will be held solely for children.
There will also be a series of music lectures at the Central Conservatory of Music and Beijing University.
The annual Beijing Music Festival, initiated in 1998, has recently been drawing wider attention from around the world and is becoming a major event.
(China Daily)
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