Dai, the best tenor voice in China, announced his performance schedule recently at the news briefing for his new album.

The Chinese version of "Turandot", in which Dai sings the hero Calof, won't be staged in the US as planned, but to be put off until next year.

Instead, Tan will give a concert tour in the US in October.

The three-concert tour is acclaimed as the prelude to "Turandot", to see whether the US audience like Tan's voice or not.

Tu is confident that it won't be strange to the US audience, because it resembles the beautiful voice of Pavarotti a lot.

It's not Tu's self-glorification, but the quote of appraisal from Pavarotti.

In April, when Pavarotti came to Beijing for the "Top Tenors Concert" in the Forbidden City, he heard cassette copies of Dai's voice for the first time.

Pavarotti said he was stunned at that moment. He could believe such beautiful high C's flows out of an unknown Chinese musician's mouth.

His assistant also recalls that he couldn't believe his ears then. The voice in recorder resembles Pavarotti's so much that if Pavarotti weren't there, he would even charge the cassette producer of pirating.

After several interviews and joint performances, Pavarotti took to Tan and his songs. He broke his routine and accepted his first Asian student -- China's Dai Yu Qiang.

In many famous tenor's minds, Italian opera is something off limits to oriental people, like Peking opera to foreigners.

So far, Dai has traveled to Pavarotti's lessons several times, not regularly, only at time when Pavarotti is free. But Dai was crazy for the lessons, believing Pavarotti's words pushed him even deeper to the music stardom.

(eastday.com September 25, 2002)