The filmmaker Zhang Yimou and choreographer Chen Weiya were the two main creators of the opening ceremony for last year's Olympic games here in Beijing. The dynamic duo have paired up again to design a spectacular version of the opera "Turandot" that will be performed at the Bird's Nest. Last weekend, an audition was held for the role of a Chinese boy in the opening scene.
The four finalists competing for the role ranged in age from three to ten. Some of them were nervous at the audition. But actually, by this point, they had already survived a month-long preliminary selection process that eliminated hundreds of thousands of candidates from around China.
At Saturday's final round, the four boys displayed their best stuff, including folk dance, kungfu performance, drum beating, and singing. Finally, Ma Chenyu from Tianjin and Yao Jiahao from Beijing won the role. Over the weeks to come, they will go through special coaching, before appearing in the epic opera.
Zhang Yimou, the chief director of the Bird's Nest edition of Turandot, made a global sensation when he brought the Italian operatic masterpiece to the Ancestral Shrine in the Forbidden City about a decade ago.
(CCTV August 26, 2009)
