Starting from December 22, 2007, the first international
performance season was opened at the National Center for Performing
Arts (NCPA), also known as the Grand National Theater. More than
180 performances, in the forms of opera, pantomime, concert, drama,
or Chinese operas, would be staged. The performance season will
last until April 6, 2008.
The egg-shaped futuristic
National Center for the Performing Arts of China was officially
opened with senior Communist Party leader Li Changchun and other
officials at present at the inaugural concert, Beijing, Dec. 22,
2007. (file photo)
On Christmas night, Valery Gergiev conducted a performance of
Borodin's Prince Igor to an enthusiastic audience. Gergiev, leading
performer of the Maryinsky Theater, has become the first foreign
artist to climb atop the podium of the National Center for
Performing Arts (NCPA). The current run, which also includes Swan
Lake and two other repertory pieces by Kirov Ballet, will run until
January 6. This is the biggest overseas performing arts company to
grace a stage in China, comprising some 510 people, said Zhang Yu,
general manager of China Arts and Entertainment Group. There are 60
ballet dancers for the opening alone.
In addition to the Mariinsky Theater of Russia, famous foreign
art troupes, such as the New York Philharmonic, will take the
stage.
On December 31 and January 1, Beijing's new performing arts
center launches its first international concert, featuring the
China National Symphony orchestra led by acclaimed Japanese
director Seiji Ozawa, superstar Chinese pianist Lang Lang, luminary
Soprano Kathleen Battle, and Russia's leading violinist Vadim
Repin. The next day, also at the NCPA, the 63-year-old Te Kanawa
will give her highly anticipated mainland China debut.
A five-time Grammy Award winner, US soprano Battle's repertoire
embraces jazz and spirituals, as well as an uncommonly wide range
of classical music, from the Baroque, Handel, Strauss to composer
Andre Previn's song cycle Honey and Rue, commissioned by Carnegie
Hall for Battle, with lyrics by Nobel Prize laureate Toni
Morrison.
Photo taken on Sept. 17,
2007 shows the interior of the newly completed China's National
Grand Theater in Beijing. A series of performances will take place
to test the equipment of the multi-billion-yuan construction
starting from Sept. 25, 2007, according to local media. (photo:
Xinhua)?
New Zealander Te Kanawa hails from Maori
aristocracy and she was appointed a Dame Commander of the British
Empire in 1982. Te Kanawa is a familiar figure in the leading opera
houses of the world - Covent Garden, the Metropolitan, Paris Opera,
Sydney Opera House, La Scala, and Munich. On the concert stage, she
has sung with the world's major orchestral ensembles - Chicago
Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony and the Boston
Symphony.
(China Daily January 3, 2008)
