Opera -- often performed in Italian, and with a demanding musical style diametrically opposed to its Chinese counterpart -- seems far too Western for China. Yet recent years have seen opera singers from China consistently claiming top prizes in international opera competitions, and has made the operatic world give China a second look.

Now a quartet of these prize-winning opera stars are returning to China for a performance that should convince local opera buffs that China is a player when it comes to opera. Starring soprano Chen Qilian, tenor Li Yuxin, mezzo-soprano Li Yiping and baritone Zhang Feng, the get-together was instigated by the Shanghai Performing Artists' Association as one of the its 10th anniversary celebrations.

"Although the Shanghai Opera House has given us classics like Otello and La Traviata, a performance with such an all-star cast is still a rare thing," says Li Jiahua, acting president of the association. All of the four singers completed their college educations in Chinese conservatories.

Aside from baritone Zhang who is now based at the Shanghai Opera House, the other three have been studying and touring as professional opera performers in Europe and North America for the past decade. This experience has helped them get a clearer understanding of the gap between the opera industry in China and in Western countries.

"Opera, above all, is not merely another style of singing. It is actually a culture bound with a history of more than 400 years," says the 40-something tenor Li, who went to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston after winning one of the major prizes at the Luciano Pavorotti Competition in the late 1980s. Upon his arrival in America, Li met Pavorotti and the "King of the High C" expressed his admiration of Li's voice character, but underscored that he must first learn how to act. Li was then assigned to a preliminary program consisting of language study, beginning opera history and brief accounts of composers' lives.

"Winning a prize was not something I could parade when I found I was sitting among teenage opera students," Li says, immersed in his nostalgic memories. "But I gradually found out that compared with the simplistic vocal training I had received domestically, the Western system emphasized an all-round development that prepared a good singer for a career as a good performer," Li adds. So the concert, with the four singers representing different voice characters respectively, is a rare opportunity for local audiences and opera students to understand the quintessence of opera, which, as soprano Chen says so eloquently, is the art of letting your voice perform.

Currently an associate professor at the vocal department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Chen is trying to fill the academic blank that she thinks has hindered the progress of some talented students. "Most of the opera teachers in our local conservatories have no stage experience at all, and I wonder how they can instruct the students adequately," says Chen, who has performed the title role of Madam Butterfly more than 100 times in Europe and has been called one of the most heartbreaking and idealistic Chio-chio-sans. "Belting out a high C may not pose a problem for them, but when I asked them to bear a voice expression when they are singing, most of them didn't know what I was talking about," Chen says. Now Chen and her fellow singers are preparing popular arias for the concert, hoping they will help enhance the communication with audiences and convey the message that genuine opera performance is not only about serious, sonorous singing.

Highlights of the repertoire include "O mio Fernando" from La Favorita, the duet "It's you! It's me!" from Alexandre Bizet's Carmen, and " E lucevan le stelle" from Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.

Pianist Wu Long will provide the accompaniment and playing the solo for "Dream of Love." A student of renowned Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel, Wu had decades of experience accompanying opera performances in the United States. "I notice that most opera performances here are accompanied by grand symphony orchestras, which is probably why audiences here seldom consider piano accompaniment related to opera," says the Shanghai native with a wry smile. "So I'm pleased to have the chance to redress this misunderstanding, especially with singers who know how to collaborate with the music and make opera a holy art."

Time: 7:15pm, June 5

Venue: Lyceum Theater, 57 Maoming Rd S.

Tickets: 60-220 yuan

Tel: 021-6256-4738, 6256-5544

(eastday.com June 4, 2004)