NCPA to mark 10 years with its version of Puccini's final opera

The National Center for the Performing Arts premiered the opera Turandot, Giacomo Puccini's final piece, as its first major in-house production in 2008.

That year marked the Italian composer's 150th birth anniversary, and the iconic Beijing cultural institution along with Casa Ricordi, the company that owned the rights to Puccini's score, asked Chinese composer Hao Weiya to write an ending to the original unfinished piece. Hao's 18-minute score made him the first Chinese and the world's third artist to complete Puccini's work.

The first artist known to have completed the opera was Italian composer Franco Alfano two years after Puccini's death in 1924.