2018年CRI Denmark's singer performs in an original Chinese opera production production

（单词翻译）

Danish tenor¹ Peter Lohdahl is now in Beijing to headline an original Chinese opera production of Marco Polo.

The opera revolves² around exchanges during Marco Polo's time, along with his romance with a Chinese woman.

CRI's Liu Min has more.

Peter Lohdahl is the leading actor in Marco Polo and he can speak many languages, but he admits learning Chinese is a more difficult task.

"But this is an extremely difficult task. I didn't know about the intonations³ of the Chinese language, so this's been crazy to learn. Normally you would have a year, at least a year to learn a piece like this. But I got it (the script) in November, so that meant I have to prepare really fast in a period where we could not actually prepare."

A cast of international performers are featured in the opera, including singers from China, Denmark, Germany and the U.K. All the singing is in Mandarin⁴ Chinese as the performers vividly⁵ tell the stories of the Venetian explorer who traveled along the ancient Silk Road in the 13th century. Both English and Chinese subtitles⁶ are provided on the theater screens.

Peter Lohdahl is happy to find their opera is well received.

"This is what we also discovered in music---bringing a European opera to China with a Chinese text. And I'm happy to say that the Chinese understand it. I think the story is beautiful; we have really, really good reactions from the audience. We had a test audience in Beijing two days ago, and they are really happy about it."

It premiered in Guangzhou, a southern Chinese city in early May and will meet the Beijing audience on this Friday and Saturday.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.