Following her acclaimed debut at last year’s BBC Proms with her orchestra LaVerdi – for which The Guardian described her as ​“an exciting, heart-on-sleeve Verdian” — Xian Zhang returns to the UK to conduct Nabucco for Welsh National Opera.
 
The new production, by Rudolf Frey, opens on 31 May, and marks Zhang’s debut with the company. Performances take place in Cardiff and Birmingham until 21 June, and the production then transfers to the 2014 Savonlinna Festival in Finland in July.
 
Zhang opened this season with another Verdi opera – La Forza del Destino– in a production by Francesca Zambello for Washington Opera, which also marked her debut with the house.