China National Peking Opera Theatre will give 48 performances featuring a rich repertoire of 32 plays and short skits at the Chang'an Theatre and Poly Theatre, from February 16 to April 12.

The performances will include many of the theatre's popular classics, and the principal performers of the theatre will be featured in the shows.

During the series, 12 performances of the Peking Opera Turandot will be staged between March 10 and 21 under a contract between the theatre and Beijing GHTY Culture & Art Corporation.

The series of 48 performances will be a brand new chapter in the theatre's history, as it will be the troupe's longest continuous run in Beijing since the theatre's establishment 49 years ago.

The arrangement for the shows testifies to the theatre's effort to take up the serious challenge of holding its place in the burgeoning entertainment market.

Wu Jiang, the president of the National Peking Opera Theatre, says the company has embarked on the same long journey towards becoming competitive in the entertainment market as many other Beijing-based State-owned performing arts troupes.

Market squeeze

Numerous imported shows and popular commercial domestic productions are swarming into Beijing, the culture and arts center of China.

As a result, the State-owned troupes, especially those with traditional classical or folk repertoires, have felt the squeeze of market competition.

All the folk opera troupes, including Peking Opera performing ensembles, are losing audiences, especially in big cities such as Beijing.

Things have fallen into a somewhat vicious cycle: As audience numbers have dropped, the theatres have had to cut performances.

With the decrease in the number of shows and in ticket sales, their revenues have dwindled. As a result, the theatres have generally lacked the funds to improve their old productions or stage new ones.

The depression had already hit home when Wu was appointed president of China National Peking Opera Theatre, the largest and best Peking Opera troupe in the country, in April 2000. The theatre's artists include renowned contemporary Peking Opera performers such as Yu Kuizhi, Li Shengsu and Meng Guanglu.

Wu said, Peking Opera has been his life and soul since he started to learn the art at the age of 8.

He performed Peking Opera, wrote Peking Opera scripts, taught at the Peking Opera school and served as the vice-director of the Beijing Municipal Culture Administration, where he was placed in charge of folk opera theatres.

He says he "keenly felt" the crisis the national theatre was in.

He faced a harsh fact: The theatre then had a total of only about 100 performances scheduled every year, in Beijing and other cities around China as well as abroad.

He was worried about the future of Peking Opera. "I did not want the theatre or the opera to become a giant panda, requiring full protection from the government," he says.

He and his colleagues started the hard work to transform the theatre, adapting to market competition and developing profitable productions.

Adventurous adaptations

In addition to revising repertoire and upgrading stock productions, Wu and his colleagues looked to staging their shows in popular venues at appropriate times of the year, because the troupe does not have a theatre of its own.

However, because of lack of capital, it has always been difficult for the troupe to rent good venues at good showing times. High rents put a heavy burden on the troupe, and the better venues usually prefer shows with good box-office potential.

To avoid the tough competition in the capital's golden show season but at the same time keep up its form, Wu took his troupe to tour provinces in the northern and eastern parts of the country, such as Hebei, Shandong and Shanxi, where they could find more enthusiastic Peking Opera fans.

But Wu said he didn't give up on the entertainment market in Beijing.

In October 2000, Wu signed a contract with Chang'an Theatre, the best venue for folk operas in the city, to give regular shows running for a week during the Labour Day Holiday in May, National Day Holiday in October and at Spring Festival, China's three longest public holidays.

His efforts have borne fruit.

Since he took office, the average revenue per show has increased from 7,000 yuan (US$846) in 2000, to 30,000 yuan (US$3,620) per show last year.

According to Wu, 2003 was the most profitable year for the theatre so far. It took in a total of 4.6 million yuan (US$556,000) in revenue, despite the fact that the theatre had to cancel more than 100 performances because of the outbreak of SARS.

Another important achievement is that the theatre has added quite a few new productions to its traditional repertoire and restaged more than 70 classical plays. At the same time, many of its young actors and actresses have risen to stardom in the past three years.

"I do not expect all the shows to sell well and make money," Wu says. "Peking Opera fans like to see classic plays and established performers. So I am always prepared for financial losses when developing new repertoire and casting new performers.

"But I have to do it, because Peking Opera cannot live and grow without fresh blood," Wu says.

Last year, the troupe produced four new plays, No 1 Scholar Zhang Xie (Zhang Xie Zhuangyuan) Lu River and Yi Mountain (Lushui Yishan), Wusha Ji and Turandot.

The theatre also restaged Dream of a Bride (Chun Gui Meng), a signature play of the Cheng School, to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Cheng Yanqiu (1904-58), one of the greatest Peking Opera actors.

No 1 Scholar Zhang Xie is adapted from China's first play script, which bore the same title, some 800 year ago. The open-minded Wu invited Lin Zhaohua, one of China's most renowned contemporary drama directors, to direct the production. In it, Lin retains many traditional features of ancient Chinese folk opera and makes use of some old folk songs and chanted fables.

In December, the Peking Opera version of Turandot raised strong audience and critic reactions. With the first run of 15 shows at Chang'an Theatre, the show averaged a take of 70,000 yuan (US$8,454) per show.

Aiming to move Peking Opera into the world market, Wu selected the story of princess Turandot, arguably the best-known figure in Chinese theatre in the Western world.

Wu says the troupe tours abroad regularly every year, but that most tours have been cultural exchange events sponsored by the government. He hopes Turandot will become a successful commercial show in some main Western venues, with bigger audiences and without reliance on government support.

To achieve further commercial success, Wu and his colleagues have started to work with entertainment companies to promote their shows.

He says that every year his theatre adds new productions to its repertoire, some of which earn performance and cultural awards and the praise of critics.

Marketing helps

However, these new shows may not do well at the box office.

Born under the planned economy, the State-owned theatre does not know the rules of the market that well, Wu admits.

"We are professional in Peking Opera but out of our element in market promotion. So we need some help in this way," he says.

Last December, Wu worked out a promotional scheme with Beijing GHTY Culture & Art Corporation and invited its managers to the debut of Turandot.

Wu's ambition for and devotion to Peking Opera, as well as his hopes for Turandot, impressed the leading culture & arts group so much that the company signed a three-year contract with Wu and his troupe in mid January.

In the coming three years, GHTY will help to promote at least 200 performances of Turandot, both at home and abroad. GHTY promises an average box-office take of 10,000 yuan (US$1,207) per show.

"The artistic quality of the production deserves the contract. I see a promising future for our co-operation as well as for Peking Opera," said Hu Jingyu, general manager of GHTY.

The co-operation will start with GHTY helping to promote the 12 performances of Turandot at the Poly Theatre, which will run from March 10 to 21.

In addition to producing new plays and restaging old ones, the theatre has more plans for 2004.

In May, they will perform some modern Peking Opera plays to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the debut of this special branch of the old art. Many of these modern plays, with themes reflecting the revolution, were debuted by the theatre.

Zhang Huoding, one of the most talented young actresses of the theatre and a promising student of the Cheng school, will establish her own studio in the theatre to further promote the study and development of the Cheng school.

But what encourages Wu most of all is that the company will soon have its own theatre. The new building complex, already under construction, will be completed in May 2005, and the China National Peking Opera Theatre will present its first show in its own venue in May 2006.

Wu said with great pride: "The new building complex will cost nearly 300 million yuan (US$36 million), and we have earned most of the money to pay for it ourselves."

(China Daily February 17, 2004)