Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, 67, will hit the high notes with a prominent People's Liberation Army soprano at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, the Shanghai-based Liberation Daily reported on its website.
Song Zuying , 42, who was promoted to major general by the navy this year, is as big on the mainland as the 'Three Tenors' are overseas. Song, who works for the PLA art troupe, is said to be a favourite artist of former president Jiang Zemin . The two will perform together on August 24, and organisers have promised the closing ceremony will be 'a huge carnival-style party for the human race'.
'It's going to be very different from the opening ceremony, which was burdened with heavy responsibility to show Chinese culture to the world,' Miao Pei , one of the directors for the closing ceremony, was quoted as saying by the Southern Metropolis News.
'The end of the Games should be celebrated in a much more light-hearted atmosphere ... should be a mixture of rowdy relief, joy ... and euphoria.'
Hundreds of brightly clad professional dancers from Yunnan province in the southwest, home to more than half of the country's ethnic minorities, will dance the party to a dynamic end, the Liberation Daily said.
Renowned film director Zhang Yimou - the chief architect of both opening and closing ceremonies - previously said that the highlight of the closing party would be putting out the Olympic flame, which will have burned for 17 days during the Games. Rumour also has it that in the closing festival, Zhang will try to use some of the programmes that were dropped from the opening ceremony.
