When Italian composer Andrea Granitzio first learned about the Chinese legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai from opera singer Wang Beibei in 2016, he was inspired by the epic love story.

Seven years later, in collaboration with Wang, Granitzio has created the first Italian-language opera about the Chinese legend, and is looking forward to an opportunity to bring the two-hour show to the stage.

In April, a four-minute excerpt from the opera was performed at an event marking the restoration of a Chinese pavilion in the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden Wisley, in Surrey.

"The Chinese legend is similar to Romeo and Juliet, but it gives people something more, because, at the end of the story, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai turn into butterflies — it symbolizes the hope inside a tragedy," said Granitzio after the performance.

"I'm sure that if Puccini, the great Italian composer, had known this story, he would have written an opera about it. It's got all the perfect elements of a story."

In March, Wang traveled to Granitzio's hometown, Cagliari, the capital of the Italian island of Sardinia, and recorded a demo of the opera with Granitzio and Giovanni Pasini, a conductor and a longtime friend of Granitzio.

"When he (Granitzio) told me about this story, I was surprised that nobody did it before because the story is so powerful and famous in China," says Pasini, who played the viola in the demo.

"I think this deep and emotional story deserves this kind of musical treatment."