Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) will begin celebrating the Chinese New Year early by bringing back its opera The Lady of the Camellias from January 20 to 24, NCPA announced on Friday.

Featuring an international cast of Chinese, Kazakhstan and Argentinean performers, the opera also brings in famous Italian conductor Renato Palumbo, who has previously cooperated with the NCPA on operas such as Norma, A Masked Ball and Falstaff.

"As we all know, The Lady of the Camellias is one of the most difficult operas and it is an honor for me as a conductor to cooperate with NCPA on this work," Palumbo told media after a rehearsal on Friday.

"Audiences in China prefer to see more well-known operas like The Lady of the Camellias around the Spring Festival period," Zhan Mengshan, project coordinator for the opera, told the Global Times.

"It has been staged at NCPA five times before, and every time tickets have quickly sold out."

Following The Lady of the Camellias, stage dramas such as King Lear and opera The Barber of Seville will come to NCPA in February.