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

 

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.

1 tenor   

n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意

参考例句：

• The tenor of his speech was that war would come.他讲话的大意是战争将要发生。
• The four parts in singing are soprano,alto,tenor and bass.唱歌的四个声部是女高音、女低音、男高音和男低音。

2 revolves   

v.（使）旋转( revolve的第三人称单数 )；细想

参考例句：

• The earth revolves both round the sun and on its own axis. 地球既公转又自转。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Thus a wheel revolves on its axle. 于是，轮子在轴上旋转。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 intonations   

n.语调，说话的抑扬顿挫( intonation的名词复数 )；（演奏或唱歌中的）音准

参考例句：

• Being able to say simple sentences in correct stresses and intonations. 能以正确的重音及语调说出简单的句子。 来自互联网
• Peculiar intonations and interesting stories behind every character are what motivated Asmaa to start learning Chinese. 奇特的声调，有故事的汉字，让吴小莉在阴阳上去中、点横竖撇拉中开始了咿呀学语阶段。 来自互联网

4 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

5 vividly   

adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地

参考例句：

• The speaker pictured the suffering of the poor vividly.演讲者很生动地描述了穷人的生活。
• The characters in the book are vividly presented.这本书里的人物写得栩栩如生。

6 subtitles   

n.说明字幕，印在外国影片上的对白翻译字幕，译文对白字幕；小标题，副标题( subtitle的名词复数 )；（电影的）字幕

参考例句：

• subtitles for the deaf and the hard of hearing 为耳聋和听力不佳者打出的字幕
• a Polish film with English subtitles 附有英语字幕的波兰影片