Last year the orchestra experimented performing the opera "Carmen" in concert version at the end of the 2004-05 music season and it won thunderous applause.

Without any complicated scenery or lighting, the "Carmen" concert seized the audience with its attractive music and high drama last July at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center.

"It takes a lot of time and a big budget to make an opera, and it is very difficult to break even in China," says conductor Chen Xieyang, musical director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. "Compared with symphony, it's more difficult for Chinese audiences to understand and appreciate an opera. The concert version maintains all the drama, the most attractive parts, but removes some not-so-important librettos, making the opera more concise and easier to understand."

Chen has revised the three-act 3.5-hour "La Traviata" into a two-hour concert version, which is still just as long as a normal symphony concert.

Award-winning Chinese soprano Yao Hong will join the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra for the first time in the role of Violetta. Winner of the Fourth Marseilles International Opera Competition, Yao has acted the tragic Violetta many times since 1993.

Chinese tenor Wei Song will play Violetta's lover, Alfredo, who is famous for his penetrating and metallic voice and won high acclaim from maestro Sherrill Milnes from the Metropolitan Opera.

Veteran Chinese baritone Yang Xiaoyong will play Alfredo's father, Giorgio Germont, who has an infallible technique, sensitive phrasing and always gives an impassioned performance. His playing of Iago in Verdi's "Othello" has led him to be called "the second-to-none advocate of the devil."

Adapted from Alexandre Dumas' "La dame aux camelias" by Francesco Maria Piave, the opera "La Traviata" tells the story of an upper-class prostitute who sacrifices herself for her lover, but finally dies heart-broken. With psychological truthfulness in the music, beautifully written lyrics and a heart-wrenching sense of tragedy, the opera demonstrates all of Verdi's musical virtue.

The premier was such a hit that the original author of the novella, Dumas once remarked that: "Perhaps nobody would have remembered my novella 'La dame aux camelias' in 50 years, but Verdi has immortalized it."

Date/Time: July 8, 7:30pm
Loation: Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, No.425 Dingxianglu, Pudong
Tickets: RMB 80-480
Tel: 021-64333574/68541234