Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. NCPA's production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra will be staged at the Opera House of the NCPA August 20-23.

Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra (1843) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was first performed at Teatro La Fenice, Venice on 12 March 1857. Given the difficulties with the original plot, a revised version, with text changes by Arrigo Boito, was first performed at La Scala, Milan on 24 March 1881. It is this version, with its Council Chamber scene as the finale to Act 1, that is usually given today.

Conductor: Myung-Whun Chung

Myung-Whun Chung is one of the leading conductors of his generation. Myung-Whun Chung began his musical career as a pianist and won the second prize at the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1974. He became Carlo Maria Giulini's assistant in 1979 at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and two years later named the Associate Conductor. He has conducted virtually all the prominent European and American orchestras and made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1986 with Simon Boccanegra.

He was 1995's UNESCO "Man of the Year" and in 1996 won the highest cultural award of the Korean government. He returned to Korea to become music director of the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, and is the first Honorary Cultural Ambassador for Korea.

Dates: August 20-23, 2015

Venue: Opera House of the NCPA

Add: No. 2 West Chang'an Avenue, Xicheng District

Source: Theatrebeijing