It's a case of love at first hearing for most people on being introduced to the music of Astor Piazzolla, the Argentinian composer whose tango opera Maria de Buenos Aires will be performed at the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
Over the past year or so, symptoms of something that could develop into full-blown tango fever have been manifesting themselves among local music lovers.
At last year's arts festival, classical music audiences thrilled to the novelty of tango sounds in a concert of contemporary music given by celebrated violinist Gidon Kremer, an ardent Piazzolla champion, and his group Kremerata Baltica.
Six months ago, the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong presented an all-Piazzolla concert that was warmly received by an audience eager for something new and exciting.
And now there is Maria de Buenos Aires, waiting in the wings. She is a bird of paradise, a creature of smouldering and erupting passions, a flamboyant symbol of a city and a culture. A painted lady whose home is the world of nightclubs, cabarets and brothels. And she sings the most heart-achingly beautiful music heard in a long, long time.
And she is not even a proper opera. Something in-between, a hybrid some call 'music theatre' for want of a better description. And she dances the tango.
The other thing about her is she isn't all that young. The opera that seems to be 'hot news' to many serious classical music fans is, in fact, 32 years old.