Wagner's last opera, Parsifal, will make its China debut with the collaboration of Chinese and foreign musicians at this year's Beijing Music Festival.

Beijing Music Festival salutes two of the greatest composers the world has known, Chen Jie reports.

Yu Long, artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, says music is an art that has passed from one generation to another. "It is those great composers who guide us to walk all the way here. Their music comforts us, inspires us and sometimes drives us mad," Yu says. So every year, the BMF pays tribute to those great musicians and invites all music fans to enjoy their legacy. This year, as the whole world is celebrating the 200th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, the BMF will devote most of its programs to salute the two opera giants.

"Both are geniuses," Yu says. "They not only created great music but shaped the musical life of people in their countries. Verdi comforts the human spirit while Wagner is the one who drives you mad. His music makes you feel willing to die like Isolde."

On Oct 4, Yu will conduct the China Philharmonic Orchestra in performing a gala concert to kick off the month-long festival.

Chinese soprano He Hui, Serbian soprano Milica Ilic and Hungarian mezzo-soprano Ildiko Komlosi will sing the trademark arias of Verdi and Wagner's operas such as Wagner's Tannhauser and Tristan and Isolde, and Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, Rigoletto and Aida.

Verdi's fans will have two concerts and three operas: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata.

"Talking about opera, Verdi is one of the top three composers you would think of," says Tu Song, BMF's program director. "Verdi created some of the most beloved operas of all time, from the romantic La Traviata to Shakespearian dramas Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff. Many of his arias are considered the greatest songs ever written, streaming out of opera houses into football stadiums and even the charts."

The festival also features some of the world's most-acclaimed musicians, including (from left) Charles Dutoit, Zhou Long, Yu Long, Krzysztof Penderecki and Gustav Kuhn.

But in critic Tang Ruofu's eyes, Wagner is more versatile and ambitious.

"Different from other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the score and the libretto. He created the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) and more importantly, he raised funds to run the annual Bayreuth Festival and build his own opera house Bayreuth Festival Theater. It was there that the Ring cycle and Parsifal premiered."

In 1885, two years after the composer's death, the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick called Wagner "the world's first regisseur (theater director)". Tang thinks he was the first producer and had great impact on opera.

"You could criticize Wagner's political views but it's not his fault that he was loved by Hitler and listened to surreptitiously by Speer, Hess and Von Schirach in their Spandau Prison," Tang adds.