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This new version of the iconic opera is scored for five singers and chamber ensemble. It is set over two scenes and set in a bar. Carmen, Micäela and Mércedès are bargirls; Don José is a police officer who stumbles upon a criminal operation run by the gangster Escamillo.
The new production from Xinghai Conservatory in Guangzhou, derived from the original for the 2025 French May Festival, ran on 16-17 June 2026.
The production, developed for the French May, presented by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Opera Hong Kong, debuted on 30 May 2026. The performance featured Etta Fung as Mimi, Vivian Yau as Musette, Chen Yong as Rodolphe and Lam Kwok Ho as Marcel, with Arièle Zanini on piano. See full details.
Although still less well-known today than its counterparts in Italian, French and German, song in Portuguese has spread around the globe since its earliest days. To uncover these often hidden gems of the lusophone vocal tradition, this recital — performed by young up-and-coming singers from Portugal, Hong Kong and Macau — aims to give an overview of Portuguese-language opera and song from the baroque to the 20th century, from Portugal to Macau and Brazil. The journey starts in the 18th and early 19th centuries with Luso-Brazilian composers who called both Portugal and Brazil home. The turn of the 20th century is represented by romantic opera on the European model, while the 20th century is filled with art song, from Brazil to Portugal and even from own own Macau.
The recital features soprano Sílvia Sequeira, mezzo Ashley Chui and baritone Chris Kun Hang Iek barítono singing selections from Marcos Portugal, António José da Silva “O Judeu”, José Maurício Nunes Garcia, Alfredo Keil, Alberto Nepomuceno, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Fernando Lopes-Graça,P. Áureo de Castro and Alexandre Delgado. Arièle Zanini is on piano.
Among the many Chinese who found cultural and intellectual inspiration in Paris between the World Wars were a number of now well-known artists, writers and musicians: Sanyu, Lin Fengmian, Pan Yuliang, Li Jinfa, Xu Xu, Shao Xunmei, Xian Xinghai, Ma Sicong.
This story of impoverished artists, equal parts humour, romance and tragedy, happiness and sadness, tells a completely recognisable and relatable tale of a group of young people in the period of self-discovery between feckless youth and adult responsibility.
Echoing the classic French novel by Henri Murger, based on the iconic opera by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini and sung in French, Scènes de la vie de Bohème is an intimate dramatic adaptation of Giacomo Puccini’s classic opera. Reduced to the four principal roles, this new version is designed to focus on the emotional ties between the two couples while telling a story of the Chinese cultural diaspora in Paris: a story of love, loss, art, poverty and the richness of life.
The new version debuts for the French May as part of La vie bohème 2026 on 30 May at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Jockey Club auditorium. The performance features:
Etta Fung – Mimi
Chen Yong – Rodolphe
Vivian Yau – Musette
Lam Kwok Ho – Marcel
Piano: Arièle Zanini
The Hong Kong Professional Vocalists Association is performing the OperaLab’s “fairy-tale” version of George Bizet’s first opera Le Docteur Miracle as part of the French May Arts Festival and with the support of the French Consulate, featuring the new selections for children’s soloists and choir written by Marco Iannelli. It will performed on 21-22 May at Tungpo.
More operetta than opera, and only about an hour in length, Dr Miracle is a comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously, yet still shows early evidence of the talent of the future composer of Carmen. It tells the timeless story of a young woman in love with a boy her overbearing father thinks unsuitable — only a doctor or lawyer will do — but, despite the attractions of a vain and flirty stepmother, love finds a way through various disguises, a poisoned possibly omelette, and a fake doctor with a miracle cure.
For the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Milanese composer Vittorio Gnecchi Ruscone (1876–1954), soprano Denia Mazzola Gavazzeni and the Ab Harmoniae Onlus Association, in collaboration with Fondazione MIA of Bergamo and Serate Musicali of Milan, presented La Rosiera by Vittorio Gnecchi Ruscone, a three act opera based on a libretto by Carlo Zangarini. The performance of the restored first (1908) version took place on 26 January 2026 at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, Milan.
At just nineteen, Vittiorio Gnecchi composed and staged the “azione pastorale” Virtù d’amore at the theatre of the family villa in Verderio, a work later published by Giulio Ricordi. Passionate about ancient tragedy, he then collaborated with Luigi Illica on the libretto for Cassandra, based on Aeschylus’s Oresteia, which premiered in Bologna in 1904 to great success under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. The triumph of Cassandra was followed by the first drafts of La Rosiera, a tragic idyll to a libretto by Carlo Zangarini, inspired by Alfred de Musset’s novella On ne badine pas avec l’amour.
The compositional style of La Rosiera, while employing post‑Wagnerian chromatic harmonies, remains rooted in classical forms, creating a narrative that rises from elegiac tones to tragic intensity.
The opera is set at the end of the 18th century. “Rosiera” is the nickname of Rosetta, an orphan, and adopted sister of Camilla and niece of the Baron of Salency. The Baron is determined to marry her to his son Perdicano. Rosetta, naive and simple, falls prey to Perdicano’s seduction, though his true love is Camilla, his cousin and childhood companion. Camilla, under the strict control of her governess Pluche, hides her growing feelings for Perdicano by deciding to enter a convent. Jealousy and passion ultimately drive her to betray her friend Rosetta. When passion finally erupts between Camilla and Perdicano, Rosetta, devastated, takes her own life by cutting her wrists with a sickle.
La Rosiera confirms Gnecchi’s sensitivity and profound literary and musical culture. Acclaimed in German‑speaking countries, he was unjustly forgotten in Italy, largely due to accusations of plagiarism involving Richard Strauss. When Strauss’s Elektra premiered in 1909, musicologist Giovanni Tebaldini noted similarities with Gnecchi’s Cassandra. The controversy proved deleterious only for Gnecchi, who was never able to clear his name.
La rosiera was not performed until 1927, some two decades after it was written, in Gera, Germany and is German as Die Rosenkönigin. After performances in Czechoslovakia, Vienna and the Netherlands, it finally received its Italian debut in Trieste in January 1931. There are no records of it having been performed publicly since the early 1930s.
A longtime admirer of Gnecchi’s harmonic and contrapuntal style, soprano Denia Mazzola was the first modern interpreter of Clitemnestra in Cassandra (Festival Radio France et Montpellier, 2000) and performed the Missa Salisburgensis (Lode in Musica per Santa Maria di Caravaggio, 2006). Her work aligns with the mission of the Ab Harmoniae Onlus Association, which she founded to revive unjustly forgotten musicians.
It was Mazzola Gavazzeni who invited composer and musicologist Marco Iannelli to restore and orchestrate the original 1908 version of La Rosiera, long considered lost. Iannelli, author of Il Caso Cassandra (Luigi Illica Prize, 2009), is a leading expert on Gnecchi’s music and serves as Artistic Director of the Vittorio Gnecchi Ruscone Musical Association.
The full version of Carmen Wong, complete with new score for chamber ensembles, was performed three times with three different casts at the Shenzhen School of Music.
This new version for five singers is set over two scenes and set in a bar. Carmen, Micäela and Mércedès are bargirls; Don José is a police officer who stumbles upon a criminal operation run by the gangster Escamillo.
The upcoming four performances from 31 December 2025 make bring this new adaptation of George Bizet’s first opera into its third year of lighting up the stage at the Guangzhou Opera House.
Carmen Wong is a new adaption of George Bizet’s iconic opera set in a Hong Kong of the 1970s. Developed for the French May and as part of the “Carmen 2025” programme celebrating the opera’s 150th anniversary, and premiering at the Hong Kong Peninsula, Carmen Wong had two staged performances at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in October 2025.
These staged performances featured Ashley Chui and Etta Fung as the two bar hostesses Carmen and Micaëla, Chen Yong as José and Isaac Droscha as the colonial policeman Escamillo, with Jaclyn Chiu on piano and including narration taken from Prosper Mérimée’s original novel.
The Guangzhou Opera House closed added more performances of the world-premiere production in modern-day Laurette travels to a French fairy-tale where all her dreams come true. Marco Iannelli’ conducted his ‘s new scores includes original music featuring resettings of familiar French children’s songs, and additional music by Bizet from his other operas “Don Procopio” and “Carmen”.
