KURESSAARE, Estonia, July 19 (Xinhua) -- The 2018 Saaremaa Opera Festival kicked off on Estonia's largest island Thursday with a performance of Carmen where Chinese singers joined in.

French composer Georges Bizet's classic took on a new look in the co-production by Shanghai Opera House (SOH), Opera Hong Kong, and Slovene National Theatre, winning acclaim from some 2,000 spectators, who included Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, former President Arnold Ruutel, and Xu Zhong, president of SOH.

"Different languages [don't] cause problems for people to understand artistic performances as everyone knows what's going on," Juri Leiten, general manager of Eesti Kontsert, the state concert institute organizing the festival, said. "Art is without border."

Arne Mikk, the 84-year-old artistic director of the festival, told Xinhua it was the first time the festival had welcomed such a large group of over 200 Chinese artists from Shanghai.

Mikk said he expects this kind of cultural exchange to attract more Chinese tourists to Kuressare, the capital of Saaremaa, and experience the differences between a small Estonian town and modern Chinese cities.

Chinese Ambassador to Estonia Li Chao said cultural exchange is one of the highlights of the mutually beneficial and practical cooperation between China and Estonia under the framework of cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European countries as well as the Belt and Road Initiative.

He also said he expects the cultural event, the largest bilateral program organized this year, to promote people-to-people exchanges between China and Estonia.

SOH will present a dance gala and a contemporary Chinese opera during the 10-day festival.

The Saaremaa Opera Festival, one of the most popular of its kind in the Baltic states, started in 1999. It takes place in the middle of the summer in the historical courtyard of Kuressaare castle.