John Malkovich frolics to the music of Mozart in "The Giacomo Variations, " a playful, frothy production which was envisioned as "a chamber opera play" by its creators.

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And the opera buffa will play on as before.

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That's how Edinburgh International Festival director Jonathan Mills summed up The Revenge of Prince Zi Dan, a version of the Shakespeare play performed by the Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe.

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Puccini's opera is based on Victorien Sardou's play "La Tosca, " which was written for the actress Sarah Bernhardt in the late 19th century.

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But others have wondered whether the opera lives up to the dramatic potential of the play.

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Theatre and opera director Sir Jonathan Miller is to stage his first play in the UK for five years.

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Originally conceived by composer Richard Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal as a blend of genres, the original, first staged in 1912, began with a ballet-spiced play, followed by a different version of the one-act opera.

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Politics is a continuing soap opera where the drama never ends and the same story lines play out time after time, just in different ways.

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He said he wants a successful national opera company in Scotland that has thousand of young Scots aspiring to play in its orchestra.

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