The headline acts in the opening season of the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) are world class. Valery Gergiev will conduct the Kirov-Mariinsky Theater of St Petersburg, Lorin Maazel heads up the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur leads the London Philharmonic. However, Chinese artists will have the honor of formally raising the curtain of the China's largest stage.

"The National Center for the Performing Arts is a dream of generations of Chinese artists for half a century," says Chen Zuohuang, music director of NCPA. "We invite the celebrated international stars to enhance the world class artistry, but we do hope to have our own artists perform on the opening day."

The three concerts on December 22, 23 and 24 will feature a star-studded cast and a rich repertoire of both classic and new commissioned work, both Western and Chinese folk music, chorus and organ.

Pianist Li Yundi, one of the celebrated musicians who will raise the curtain of the National Center for the Performing Arts this week.

On December 22 and 23, Chen and Tan Lihua, artistic director and chief conductor of Beijing Symphony Orchestra (BSO) will, in turn, take the baton of the "big" orchestra united by BSO and the National Symphony Orchestra of China.

Brilliant pianist Li Yundi will play Ravel's technically difficult Piano Concerto in G major.

And then audiences will hear violins.

Lu Siqing, Huang Bin, Huang Mengla and Ning Feng - all golden award winners of the Paganini Violin Competition - will grace the concerts on December 22 and 23. They will play in turn, and also feature in duets, as well as an ensemble performance, Paganini's 24 Capricci For Solo Violin and Vivaldi's Violin Concerto.

At the concert, the audience will also hear the very first melody produced for the largest organ in China. Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang was commissioned to create a work for the 6,500-pipe organ.

"Nowadays, more and more new concert halls in China have organs and the one in NCPA is the biggest and the most powerful," says the composer.

The celebration concerts also include an opera gala on Christmas Eve, featuring leading Chinese vocalists, such as soprano Yao Hong, tenor Xu Chang and baritone Liao Changyong.

Liao will sing Rossini's Le Barbier de Sville while Xu will rise to the challenge of singing Donizetti's aria A Mes Ami from opera La Fille du Regiment. After Pavarotti, only a few tenors in the world are able to hit all the nine thrilling high Cs in the last minute of the aria. It will be thrilling to hear powerful Xu's enchanting voice.

What is more exciting on the opera night is a new Turandot tune will be born. The great Puccini died in November 1924 without finishing the final scene of the opera Turandot. The composer's colleague, Franco Alfano, completed the duet as well as a finale, using Puccini's notes and sketches, however opera fans still imagine what Puccini himself would have written for the Chinese princess.

NCPA has commissioned Chinese composer Hao Weiya to write an 18-minute aria called The First Tear for the Chinese princess. The score has been confirmed by the Puccini Foundation as a tribute for the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth next year.

"This would be the first real Chinese interpretation of the story of the Chinese princess Turandot," says the composer Hao.

(China Daily December 18, 2007)