CRI听力:Beijing's Commercial Live Show Industry

Born and brought up in Beijing, Li Yu can still remember the shows her parents took her to see when she was a little girl.

"I remember that my parents took me to watch the performances of the Russian Circus and the Cinderella Ice Ballet, as well as concerts by Hong Kong and Taiwanese singers. Because shows were rare back then, I can still remember the small details. These days, things are different: thousands of shows are put on stage and we can watch as much as we like."

The past few years have witnessed a sudden blowout of all kinds of commercial live shows in Beijing, including pop and classic music concerts, operas, dramas and various other performances.

More and more foreign artists come to Beijing to give performances, which are often well received by Chinese audiences. This means a large number of companies that specialize in planning commercial shows have entered the market. Ge Hua Live Nation Ltd. is one of them. Li Bing is the management director.

"There are more and more high-quality shows being performed by overseas artists, and they are also successful in the box office. For instance, the Eagles' concert in March early this year. Originally, the target audiences we expected were the foreigners working in Beijing. But the fact is, it's the Chinese audience that contributes the major portion of the ticket revenue. This result indicates that the Beijing audiences expect first class performances and have the ability to appreciate them."

As one of the high art forms, opera has been gaining popularity among Chinese audiences in recent years. Foreign theater troupes flock to Beijing. In addition, the domestic theaters are also making their versions of these classical operas. Ren Yi from the National Center for the Performing Arts, says they have staged their own version of 11 world famous plays.

"Opera is called the crown of arts. Over the past two years, we've made a number of western classic plays as well as some original ones. Thanks to our work on arts popularization, we now have a group of loyal audiences. In the past, only Turandot could succeed at the box office, but now the operas like Tosca, Rigoletto and The lady of the Camellias are also well received. "

Several factors contribute to a successful performance, and a qualified audience is definitely one of them. According to Ren Yi, the world famous conductor Valery Gergiev is surprised that audiences in Beijing have such wonderful taste in art and can thoroughly understand him and the Tchaikovsky's work.

As China's cultural center, Beijing is worthy of its name: with 295 stages available, more than 10 thousand shows every year, and a large number of high quality audiences catering to varied tastes, among the thousands of performances, there must be one that you like.

For CRI, I'm Damin.