Review by Ira Siff – Opera News – November 2008

A few summers ago, when I was taking a boat tour on the Yangtze River to see the Three Gorges before they were mostly drowned by the huge ongoing dam project, I was awakened every morning at 6:30 by instrumental versions of traditional Chinese songs being piped into the cabins. My traveling companion, a friend from Beijing who is not an opera singer, would supply the missing voice and text in a sweet, unaffected voice, making the seductive melodies almost lovely enough to turn the ungodly hour bearable, as would the ravishing views of the amazing gorges. With that in mind, I was looking forward to this CD of Chinese songs assembled and sung by tenor Jingma Fan, a participant in some very prestigious singing contests — he was a finalist in both the 1987 Cardiff Singer of the World and the 1995 Pavarotti Competition — and now veteran of a fifteen-year opera career.     Continue reading →