Listings

Shows

Aida Opera by Giuseppe Verdi 2017

Date: Sept 8-10 - 8 pm

Venue: Guangzhou Opera House

Price: 280-2,280 yuan

Aida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in Egypt, it was commissioned by and first performed at Cairo's Khedivial Opera House on 24 December 1871; Giovanni Bottesini conducted after Verdi himself withdrew. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera.

Contact: 010-6655-0000

Kunqu Opera - The Palace of Eternal Youth in Kunming

Date: June 28-July 1 - 8 pm

Venue: Kunming Theatre, Yunnan

Price: 80-960 yuan

The Tang emperor (Li Longji) takes Yang Yuhuan for a concubine and gives her a title of ladyship. As a token of love, the emperor gives Yang a gold hairpin along with a jewel box. Meanwhile, An Lushan, the defeated frontier general, waggers around and shows his ferocity after he bribed Lady Yang's brother, the Prime Minister Yang Guo Cheung, to have his life spared. And then the dissolute emperor has an affaire with Lady Yang's sister, the Duchess of Guo. Lady Yang is dismissed from the imperial palace because of her jealousy. She cuts off a lock of her hair and gives it to the emperor, once more uniting the two lovers.

Contact: 010-6655-0000

Shanghai Ballet Hamlet

Date: June 24-25 - 7:30 pm

Venue: National Center for the Performing Arts

Price: 100-580 yuan

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, has not succeeded his father as King. On the throne is his uncle Claudius, who married Queen Gertrude immediately, upon the death of her husband, the first King Hamlet. At midnight the ghost of the dead King appears to his son on the battlements of the castle and commands revenge. Hamlet, unsure at first, simulates madness and asks for a performance of a play with a plot much like his father's murder, so that he can see how the King responds. Claudius, deeply alarmed, plans to send Hamlet to England. However, before Hamlet leaves, he kills Polonius (the father of Ophelia, the woman Hamlet loves) who is hiding behind a curtain in Gertrude's room.

Contact: 010-6655-0000