The Rio Olympics is shaping up to be the most pivotal of recent times.


Not because the sporting action is any more anticipated than at previous Games - far from it - but because the Olympic concept has taken so many knocks in recent years that the very credibility of the Games is under threat.


In fairness [url=http://www.airvapormaxwhite.com/]Nike Air Vapormax Blue[/url] , there has been criticism in the build-up to all Olympic Games in recent memory. This happens -largely -because the hordes of international -media are on site days before the Games kicks off and have to file daily stories with little or no sporting action to discuss. But the build-up to Rio seems worse than normal.


Locally, health has been a big concern with the Zika virus seeing a number of high-profile withdrawals - mostly notably the top four male golfers in the world - even though the official line from the IOC has been that there is nothing to worry about.


Additionally, the water in the bay in which some of the athletes will be swimming has been criticized for being filthier than swimming pool. More -recently, the sub-standard accommodation has been a favorite target - as it was in Sochi two years ago.


Safety has been another big area of concern, with the localized fears of kidnapping, robberies and scams added to the wider global threat of terrorism.


Unusually, perhaps, Chinese athletes - and fans - have also been complaining on social media, with some joking that the athletes' biggest challenge will be simply to return home alive.


But the pressure has been building on China's athletes and officials alike, with Liu Peng, head of China's Olympic Committee, saying that the country will face sterner competition in some of the disciplines it traditionally dominates. China will still, no doubt, see success in diving, gymnastics and some of the other sports Liu mentioned, but his comments prove that - in China as elsewhere - funding has to be justified by medals.


But it is the issue of doping that has arguably created the biggest cloud for Rio.


By refusing to issue a blanket ban on Russian athletes for state-sponsored -doping, the IOC has transferred the -burden to individual sporting federations. While arguing that this is somehow more fair to those affected, the result has done nothing to repair the damaged reputation of the Olympics.


Athletics - the showpiece event of the Games - already has its credibility in tatters. If these Games fails to win over sports fans from around the world, the Olympics may lose its relevancy forever.

A scene from the opera A Midsummer Night's Dream Photo: CFP

A behind-the-scenes first look at a rehearsal for late British composer Benjamin Britten's opera adaptation of Shakespeare's fantasy classic A Midsummer Night's Dream on Thursday revealed the use of real beds and a cast draped in blues and greens. The first time the performance has come to China, the opera is set to be one of the ongoing Beijing Music Festival's major performances this year.


Britten is not an unfamiliar name to Chinese audiences as his Peter Grimes (1945) was well-received at BMF years ago. Neither is Robert Carsen, the opera's director. His work directing Wagner opera Der Ring Des Nibelungen turned heads when it premiered in Shanghai in 2010.


The three-act opera officially debuted at the Beijing Poly Theater on Saturday, representing the beginning of BMF's five-year collaboration with the celebrated Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.


Memorable event


Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream made its global debut in London in 1960, while Carsen began directing the production in 1991.


"The production to all of us, if we're invited to comment on the age of this Shakespeare's play, is 25 years new, not 25 years old," Carsen said at a press conference for the opera on Thursday.


For him and his team, this 25-year-old play, a revival of the 1991 Aix production, is still full of vitality as it brings in new blood while keeping the best parts of the old production. Apart from bringing back the renowned Trinity Boys Choir in the roles of the fairies, the play also retains some of the original cast from the previous production.


"One of the members of the cast in the production was in the original production 25 years ago," he said.


"It's wonderful that someone was with us all this time."


The play also aims to pay tribute to the renowned British theater master Shakespeare, as this year marks the 400th anniversary of his death, Carsen explained.


"There are many, many editions that have been made of Shakespeare operas, probably because Shakespeare has inspired more of us in the West and also many other writers," said Carsen.


For BMF, which has promised to bring at least one opera masterpiece every year, the cooperation with the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence will enable it to bring some of the world's best operas and also the newest ideas in opera production to China, BMF artistic director Yu Long said at the press conference.


Unusual setting


The combination of Carsen's directing prowess with Swan Lake choreographer Matthew Bourne's imagination has helped make the play an amazing visual feast.


The Thursday rehearsal revealed that instead of the nighttime forest setting outlined in Shakespeare's work the stage in Act I has been turned into an enormous bed with two big white pillows and a grass-green quilt that lies under a dark-blue sky decorated by a crescent moon.


"Nature is so wonderful and magical that we don't want to put fake, artificial trees and branches or those things," Carsen said, explaining the reasoning behind the unusual stage setting.


"And my designers, they think it's necessary to apply a metaphor to represent somehow the forest is magical as the actions of the play take place on many levels. There is a world of humans and a world of fairies."


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