Tenor Shi Yijie set to thrill opera fans with role in Donizetti's work

Shanghai-born tenor Shi Yijie will never forget April 1, 2007. A student living in Vienna then, he arrived at the Vienna State Opera at 8:30 am that day to buy ticket for La Fille du Regiment, or The Daughter of the Regiment, a production of Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti's two-act opera of the same title by the Vienna State Opera.

That day was the premier of the production.

Three elderly men were in the queue ahead of him, and they had brought along couches.

Shi waited in line for more than 10 hours and finally bought a standing room ticket.

He enjoyed the show very much, especially the famous nine high Cs within two minutes in the aria, Ah! Mes Amis, performed by the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez, who is one of Shi's favorite tenors.

Some 11 years later, Shi, 36, will perform the same role, Tonio, which Florez interpreted in the opera.

He is playing the role in a production of The Daughter of the Regiment by the National Center for the Performing Arts, over March 14 to 18 at NCPA.

"This is my first chance to play the role of Tonio and I am very excited. For any tenor, the role is a challenge because of the demanding singing techniques.

"Over the past 10 years, I have turned down invitations to perform the song, Ah! Mes Amis, at concerts, because I wanted my first public performance of the song to be in the opera as Tonio. Finally, I have got an opportunity to turn my wish into reality," says Shi.

He adds that the Year of the Dog according to the Chinese zodiac cycle, is his benmingnian, meaning he was born in the Year of the Dog.

"Performing the role of Tonio is the first key thing for me this year, which is a good start," says Shi, who graduated from the Toho College of Music in Tokyo, and later moved to Europe to continue his studies on a full scholarship.

In his career abroad, Shi has performed at major international opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome and the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, before he returned to China in 2011.

Besides Shi, tenor Pietro Adaini from Sicily will also perform the role of Tonio in the opera.

The Daughter of the Regiment is one of Donizetti's most successful romantic comedies.

Set to a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-Francois Bayard, it was first performed in 1840 by the Opera-Comique in Paris.

The story is about a young woman, Marie, who was adopted and raised by a French regiment in Napoleon's time.

She later falls in love with Tonio, a Tyrolean villager who saves her in the mountains.

However, before the happy ending, the two are forced apart after Marie is brought back to her biological family in Paris.

Speaking about the upcoming show, Italian director Pier Francesco Maestrini says: "Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment is engaging and entertaining. And it caters to audiences with a spoken dialogue.

"Also, because it's a romantic comedy, the opera is easily relatable for today's audiences."

In 2014 and 2015, Maestrini was the director of the NCPA's production of Donizetti's comic opera, Don Pasquale, and L'elisir d'Amore, or The Elixir of Love.

In 2016, he was the director of Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville, also a NCPA production.

Maestrini says that this version of The Daughter of the Regiment is set in the 1950s and '60s. And, along with Spanish set designer and multimedia artist, Juan Guillermo Nova, Maestrini has mapped out fun scenes involving a snowfield, polar bear, a helicopter, a sled and a tent, to make the comic opera more lively.

Spanish soprano Sabina Puertolas and Chinese soprano Guo Chengcheng will share the role of Marie in the show.

According to the NCPA's vice-president Zhao Tiechun, the upcoming production of The Daughter of the Regiment is the 60th operatic offering by the NCPA since its opening in 2007.