It's no understatement to say that Irene Savignano is lost in translation. The 20-year-old Italian soprano is learning Putonghua from a Chinese tutor who teaches her in English, a language of which Savignano knows few words and must therefore rely on secondary translation into Italian from a Mexican colleague.

Despite these linguistic hurdles, Savignano studied enough Chinese over five weeks to sing "Jasmine Flower," an 18th century Chinese folk song that she will perform at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) tomorrow.

Savignano is the youngest performer among a group of 21 foreign opera singers from six countries in Beijing to participate in the educational and cultural exchange program "I Sing Beijing." As the only program that teaches Western vocalists to sing classic Chinese repertoire in Chinese, it aims to introduce Western audiences to traditional music from the country and formalize Chinese as one of the bel canto languages.

Ten Chinese singers will join the 21 foreign vocalists to sing a compilation of classic Chinese and foreign operas in four performances of "I Sing Beijing" scheduled between August 28 and September 4.

Stripped of its tones

The striking sounds of traditional Chinese opera styles have echoed in the hallways of the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Chaoyang district this summer. "Give me more 'oh' and 'ah.' Don't worry about the tones," suggested a Chinese instructor to his two American singers practicing "That is me" made famous by Chinese soprano Zhu Fengbo.

Further down the hall, Savignano and her 27-year-old Mexican translation companion and baritone Alejandro Lárraga Schleske attend a Chinese-language class. "My throat swelled during the first few days because of the emphasis I put into pronouncing the lyrics correctly in Chinese," explained Schleske. "I'm singing 'Yellow River Cantata.' It's a heroic piece and initially it seemed really heavy. As I learned the language, it became softer. The fact that we don't need to stress the tones when we sing makes it infinitely easier to learn."

Foreign students participating in the project, aged between 20 and 31, attend two hours of Chinese-language classes and about four hours of singing and acting classes daily. Each vocalist will sing two or three songs, solo and accompanied, at the concerts. For most singers, who were selected from music conservatoires and singing schools all over the world, their initiation to traditional Chinese opera styles has come through "I Sing Beijing."

Schleske, who has lived in China several months, views the country as an emerging stage that can provide job opportunities.

"I've always sung traditional repertoires in Spanish, French, German, Italian, English and even Russian. This is the first time that I've listened to opera in Chinese," noted Schleske, who was invited to participate in the program when he made it to the quarterfinals of "Placido Domingo's Operalia 2012" held in Beijing two months ago. "I'm learning there's a fair amount of Chinese lyrical repertoire that's very interesting and diverse, even if it isn't popular outside China yet."

Veteran at the helm

Hao Jiangtian, a bass singer and the artistic director of "I Sing Beijing," is all too familiar with the linguistic challenges that face opera performers when they head abroad.

"I went to the US to study opera in 1983 with just $35 in my pocket and four English phrases: 'hello,' 'how are you,' 'thanks' and 'goodbye,'" recalled Hao, a native Beijinger, who playfully describes "I Sing Beijing" as his "wonderful revenge." "I was already in my late-20s, but started learning English, Italian, French and German diction immediately."

Hao, who toured with the New York-based Metropolitan Opera all around the world, is an industry veteran having performed in more than 40 operas including Turandot and Don Giovanni over the past two decades.

"Whenever I returned to China, I saw the opera circle in Beijing was very limited to two or three traditional operas a year," he noted, pinpointing one of his career highlights as performing The First Emperor, based on the life of Qin Shihuang (259-210BC), in New York. "I started thinking, 'why not bring my colleagues and foreign singers to China to learn to sing in Chinese?'"

China's opera scene has changed, Hao noted, hinting it will only continue growing as time goes on. "In the past five years, at least 50 new opera houses have been built all over China," he said, pointing how the opposite is happening in many Western countries experiencing shorter opera seasons or the closures of venues.

"The boom started a decade ago. Beijing is still special as it has a national theater with production of an international level. I look at the audience and it's still 95 percent Chinese, but I see more dark-haired people than gray-haired ones like I see in New York," he commented of the audience demographic.

'Rich vocal literature'

Savage Land, a modern Chinese opera by composer Yuan Ye, was recently submitted as an entry to a singing contest in Argentina by one of the participants of last year's "I Sing Beijing" gala.

"The contest committee wrote back to our former student saying they didn't know where to get the musical score. They had never heard of Savage Land," said program director Katherine Chu, a Taiwan-born pianist who has lived in the US for the past two decades and heads a 70-strong team working on the non-profit program.

The main mission of "I Sing Beijing" is to promote Chinese as a lingua franca for opera singers to broaden the international appeal of Chinese contemporary opera, Chu added.

"These students are the first group of vocalists who are singing in Chinese with Western bel canto style. We want Chinese opera to be considered a genre that is presented in recitals and at Western opera houses. We want opera enthusiasts around the world to know there's a very rich body of Chinese vocal literature," she said.

For more information about "I Sing Beijing" visit: www.isingbeijing.org