One day in 1987, a Chinese student Yu Long went to watch opera at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. As a student learning conducting in Berlin, Yu spent most of the nights at opera houses or concerts, buying the cheapest tickets or very often standing on the top of the auditorium.

That night's opera was Aida and what was a little special to the Chinese student was that a Chinese singer was in the cast.

"I was excited. In the late 1980s, few Chinese singers performed at the European opera houses, let alone the Deutsche Oper Berlin which was something like heaven for us music students," recalls Yu.

The Chinese singer Yu saw that night was Warren Mok, the Beijing-born, Hong Kong-raised tenor. He made his European debut there, performing a messenger in Act 1 on stage.

Time flies. Some 21 years later, Mok has established himself as one of the world's renowned tenors while Yu is the Artistic Director of the annual Beijing Music Festival (BMF), which has been one of the world's leading classical music festivals under his leadership in the last 10 years.

Last night, the 11th BMF opened at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in an opera gala. Mok who started his international career from the Deutsche Oper Berlin returned to sing with the house's orchestra.

Mok was joined by German soprano Manuela Uhl to sing Franz Lehar's Das Land Des Lachelns (Land of Smiles). He encored a Chinese folk song The Place Far Away with three other Chinese singers.

Conducted by Matthias Foremny, the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin played the opera music by Verdi, Bizet, Puccini and especially the German composers Mozart and Johann Strauss.

"This is a very rare and huge overseas tour the Deutsche Oper Berlin has ever made," Axel Baisch, executive director of the opera house, said.

"Deutsche Oper Berlin has a great tradition of 19th century German operas and is specialized in playing Wagner and Strauss. Among them, Der Rosenkavalier and Tannhauser are two of the best operas in our repertoires," said Kirsten Harms, director of Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Li Zhaoxing, former foreign minister, said the performance is a "vivid reflection of the China-German cultural exchange."

"Chinese musicians act in perfect concert with the German opera house," he said after the opera. "Developing cultural exchange is conducive to the development of bilateral relations, which cannot be achieved by only economic exchange," he said.

The opera house will perform opera Der Rosenkavalier at Poly Theatre on October 3 and 5, opera Tannhauser at Poly Theatre on October 7 and 10 and one more opera gala at the Forbidden City Concert Hall on October 9.

(China Daily October 3, 2008)