Time and Date: 7:30 pm, daily, Aug. 25-28, 2011
Place: NCPA-Opera House, Beijing (Location)
Tel: 6417-7845, 400-610-3721
Tickets: 180/240/300/500/600/700/800/VIP
Booking at: http://en.piao.com.cn/beijing/ticket_4158.html

Rigoletto, jointly created in June 2009 and presented by Teatro Regio di Parma of Italy and China National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), is a stunning part of the 1st NCPA Opera Festival. All the costumes, stage design, and scene setting for Rigoletto were authorized and instructed by Teatro Regio di Parma through 'cloning of the original version'. The performance, full of classicism color, strictly followed the 'Parma' style Italian tradition. NCPA specially invited the 67-year-old world top baritone master Leo Nucci for the role of 'Rigoletto' for the premiere, which aroused an exciting 'Night of Opera'. The zealous audience at the performance moved the baritone master, and he expressed 'I would like to come here for the performance again next year.'

Presenter Teatro Regio di Parma Parma, a small town in Italy, is blessed with dazzling cultural traditions and a long history of drama and music. In 1892, Teatro Regio di Parma was established here. It perfectly embodied the ideal of integration of society and culture at that time. The opening performance of the theater was Zaira of Vincenzo Bellini, a composer from Sicilia, Italy. In fact, Zaira was not the first choice for the opening performance. Staff of the theater had been contacting Gioacchino Rossini long before the opening of the theater but no agreement was achieved. However, not long after the opening performance, Moses the Lawgiver and Semiramide of Rossini were performed in the first season of the theatre and they were great successes. In the first ten years of the 19th century, performances in Teatro Regio di Parma included works of "The Three Masters" of bel canto opera – Gioacchino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti.