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March 30, 2015

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Students have a feast for opera lovers

Watching opera performances can be costly, but a group from
Britain have come up with a strategy to help opera lovers spend less and enjoy more 鈥 selecting the best bits of classic operas and putting them in a single show.

A dozen young people from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama are to present 鈥淥pera Scenes鈥 as part of the celebrations of the first Year of Cultural Exchanges between China and the UK.

鈥淥pera Scenes鈥 consists of classic scenes from around a dozen western operas, including Mozart鈥檚 鈥淐osi fan Tutte鈥 and 鈥淒on Giovanni,鈥 Poulenc鈥檚 鈥淟es mamelles de Tiresias,鈥 Handel鈥檚 鈥淎riodante鈥 and Donizetti鈥檚 鈥淟鈥檈lisir d鈥檃more.鈥

The show is set to make its Chinese debut at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on Friday.

鈥淭he project will give our young singers a wonderful opportunity to communicate their art to a new audience and we hope that this will be the start of a regular exchange of artistic projects including bringing some classical Chinese opera to London,鈥 said Barry Ife, the school鈥檚 principal.

鈥淭he year of China-UK cultural exchange is an excellent opportunity to improve mutual understanding of each nation鈥檚 artistic and performing traditions, and to find ways of developing those art forms for new audiences in the 21st century,鈥 he said.

In 鈥淥pera Scenes,鈥 students on the school鈥檚 opera course will perform a range of excerpts in a workshop setting, allowing anyone new to the art form to get a taste of a variety of different operas, he said.

鈥溾極pera Scenes鈥 offers a nice cross-section of excerpts from the Western operatic tradition. They are presented in a studio environment and the audience is very close to the singers and the action. The effect is very powerful.鈥

Ife said there was a growing appetite for British theater in China, and 鈥淥pera Scenes鈥 aimed to provide a more immersive experience for Chinese opera-goers.

鈥淚mmersive theater brings the actors and the audience into close proximity and is usually staged in non-traditional venues where it is easier to break down the barriers between the stage and the auditorium,鈥 he said.

He said the school would be announcing further collaborations with Chinese institutions later this year.

鈥淲e are planning a number of residencies in which practitioners can learn about how the arts are developed and managed in each of our two countries,鈥 he said.

Tickets to 鈥淥pera Scenes鈥 are on sale now at 80 yuan (US$12.8).


 

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