Chinese folk songs and arias from famed operas has received a different interpretation Saturday night when they were performed in Mandarin by Western artists at a show in Vancouver's neighboring suburb city of New Westminster.

"Allegro: An evening of classical music East and West," was a serious exercise in promoting cultural exchanges in front of an audience of 350 at a local college theater.

Leo Liu Zhenyu, the artistic director and planner of the performance, said the idea for the show came to him as he realized that while Chinese were fairly familiar with famous Western operas, this was not true of Westerners' knowledge of Chinese operas.

In assembling a cast of seven Western opera veterans, all of whom were given a crash course in Chinese language instruction, Liu staged a performance featuring such opera standards from Wolfgang Mozart, Gioachino Rossini and Giacomo Puccini, in addition to such famed Chinese folk songs as "Pamier, my beautiful hometown" and "Jasmine Flower," among the 19 selections.

"Operatic singing is such a beautiful way to present music but nowadays people like pop songs which is disposable and doesn't require the discipline of opera singers who train to work the music, using their body as an instrument to provide their interpretation of the music," said Liu, who lived in Beijing before emigrating to Canada.

"Yes, it's a new concept in bringing in Western performers, but it adds a new element. It provides the potential of reaching two audiences in future and really seeing where this can go."

Liu, a former winner of the National Operatic singing competition, should be given credit for surrounding himself with a strong group of veteran performers, backed by a local Chinese choir capable of staging such a performance.

Among the cast were acclaimed tenor Tim Augustin, fellow tenor Sunny Shams, sopranos Dawn Wolski and Michelle Koebke, mezzo-soprano Erin Lawson and baritone Andrew Greenwood.

Washington D.C.-based Augustin, who has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center during his lengthy career, said he was attracted to participating in the show because it was something new in the opera world.

He performed the folk song "The sun never sets on the grassland" as well as Puccini's "Nessun dorma" from Turandot and the Italian standard "O Sole Mio."

"I worked with some Chinese linguists for a couple of weeks and learned my songs phonetically."

Augustin, who flew in for the show, said he was open to performing in China if this opera concept ever took off. The show's promoter is hoping to take it to the Chinese mainland by year-end if finances and scheduling can be arranged.

He called the Chinese folk songs "lovely," and not too dissimilar from early folk songs from the West.

"They are lovely. It's a lot of fun. In today's cross-cultural society we all need to know each other and a big part of anyone's culture is their music."