The Phantom of the
Opera, a hit musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber,
staged its first show in Guangzhou city in Guangdong province on Sept 22. The
southern Chinese city is the second location on the mainland, after Shanghai,
to host the show that is scheduled to be staged in Beijing in November.
The Guangzhou
Opera House has a giant chandelier and takes the look of 19th-century Paris
while hosting the musical that is being staged through Sunday.
The investment
on the show in the two Chinese cities cost 90 million yuan ($14 million), a
record for the country's market for musicals, according to Tian Yuan, general
manager of Beijing-based One World Culture Communications, a subsidiary of
China Arts and Entertainment Group that organized the tour.
"The
Chinese market for musicals has grown a lot in the past 10 years, which is part
of the reason why we dared to introduce such an expensive production,"
Tian says. "Theaters have also sprung up across the country with heavy
investments from the government."
The Phantom of
the Opera
is regarded as "the diamond on the crown" of Webber's musicals, Tian
says. It debuted in London's West End in 1986 and has been staged more than
74,000 times in 27 countries, attracting at least 130 million viewers, before
coming to Guangzhou.
"The show
is magic. I mean that both literally and in terms of the emotional involvement
of the audience while watching the incredible story," says Philip Godawa,
the musical's director.
And, it isn't
far-fetched. The stage setting, for instance, suddenly changes from the dressing
room for Christine, the musical's heroine, to a subterranean "lake"
enshrouded in mist.
Six large
candelabrums rise from the stage floor, making for strong visual effects. The
Phantom and Christine sail across the lake on a boat to his lair beneath the opera
house.
It took 22
days to assemble the complex stage at Guangzhou Opera House with 23 containers
of props and clothes. The stage floor with 150 "secret" doors was
specially made and delivered to Guangzhou by air.
Shanghai Grand
Theater was the only theater that Really Useful Group, the producer of The
Phantom of the Opera, could find in China to meet the demands of stage
setting when the musical made its mainland debut in 2004, Tian says.
The musical
returned to Shanghai in 2013, and chose Guangzhou Opera House this year as it
was willing to modify its stage for the show, while the newly built Beijing
Tianqiao Performing Arts Center seemed like another good venue as the country's
only theater designed for musicals.
I couldn’t
have said it any better than THE CHINA DAILY. This performance was
breathtaking. I saw “Phantom” in NYC on
Broadway at least ten years ago, I still
remember that feeling of seeing it for the first time! The Guangzhou Opera House did well for
itself.
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