British composer Benjamin Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream will take part in the 19th Beijing Music Festival (BMF), which is scheduled to begin on October 9, the festival's artistic director Yu Long announced at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.
The product of five years of collaboration between BMF and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, the three-act opera directed by Canadian opera director Robert Carsen will take the stage in Beijing on the nights of October 15 and 16, Yu said.
In addition, the festival, which this year has taken musical legacy and innovation as its theme, will stage a total of 30 performances, ranging from opera and orchestra to folk songs, over its 21-day run.
Performances by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Tchaikovsky Sympony Orchestra lead by conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev will bring eastern European music to lovers of classical music in Beijing.
At the press conference, Yu said that China still has a long way to go to catch up with the West when it comes to modern opera.
"We had the same starting line. So BMF always wants to create something new and try something different," he told media at the conference.
One of these more experimental performances includes 3D mini-opera Blank Out, which features one performer on stage accompanied by singers who were filmed using advanced 3D technology projected onto screens on stage.
