Festival celebrates Sino-French cultural exchange

He also notes that though the arias from operas are usually performed by symphony orchestras, the concert will present a different version of the arias with new arrangements.

"French music is associated with words such as romance and elegance. These songs will provide the audience with different music styles since the French composers opened up to various music influences," adds Zhang Liping, who is the first Chinese-born singer to play a lead role as Cio-Cio-San with the New York Metropolitan Opera in Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly.

Born in Wuhan, Hubei province, to a classical musician father and a dancer mother, Zhang Liping received vocal training at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music and graduated from the vocal opera department of the Central Conservatory of Music where she now teaches, in 1989. As a student, she performed with Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, and this big break inspired her to pursue opera in the West by studying with Canadian soprano Phyllis Mailing at the Vancouver Academy of Music. In 1997, she moved to London and started her career.

She also performed in operatic productions in Europe and the United States, such as La Traviata, Turandot, Faust and Carmen, before she returned to China in 2006.

The soprano says that she has a special love for French art songs ever since she was a student. "Singing an art song is like reading a poem," she says.