TIANJIN — Dressed as the tragic heroine Violetta, a soprano's voice rose through the lively Italian Style Area, a well-preserved architectural district in North China's Tianjin where culture and commerce now blend in new ways.

The Italian opera La Traviata is usually performed on a theater stage with elaborate sets. This time, during the five-day May Day holiday, it stepped out of the concert hall and into an urban public space, thus transforming the Italianate architectural district in Tianjin into an open-air theater.

Adapted from the novel The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-95), the opera tells the tragic love story between Parisian courtesan Violetta Valery and young bourgeois Alfredo Germont.

"The show has infused classic operas with renewed vigor in urban public spaces, enriching tourists' holiday experiences," says Zhang Yiquan, a performer with the Tianjin Opera and Dance Drama Theater.

Tourists gathered in the streets, swaying gently to the music. Among them stood Alberto Casartelli, an Italian who teaches at Tianjin Foreign Studies University. As a frequent visitor to the area, he says: "I always find a bit of home here."

Casartelli adds that the Baroque windows in this historical area echo the architectural lines seen in old photos of Florence, while artists sketching at outdoor cafes remind him of street painters in Venice.