Shanghai’s new Grand Opera House has opened in the city’s Expo Park beside the Huangpu River. Designed by Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta, the building is shaped like an open fan and contains three halls with a combined capacity of more than 4,200 seats. Its foyer features tall ceilings, expansive stairways and scarlet-red columns.
Construction took six years and ten months, according to the article. The reported cost is 3.9 billion yuan, equivalent to about €500 million, though the figures could not be independently verified.
International productions dominate the opening season. The Berlin State Opera is presenting “Der Rosenkavalier,” the Mariinsky Theatre of St Petersburg is bringing “Turandot” and “Aida,” and Venice’s La Fenice opened the season with “Tosca.” The autumn performances have been sold out for some time.
The opera house does not have its own resident ensemble. Its director, Zhang Xiaoding, has described it as a place for encounters, with the spacious foyer also suited to temporary exhibitions. The venue is run by the city, which also oversees the Grand Theatre at People’s Square. The city’s cultural institutions are working together, rather than competing for audiences, alongside Shanghai’s International Art Festival.
Classical opera carries considerable social prestige in China, the article reports. Qian Jin, a professor at Shanghai International Studies University, says audiences see the European art form as a marker of high culture. The crowd is also younger, on average, than opera audiences in Germany, with urban professionals and families among its regular attendees.
Among European opera composers, Richard Wagner is especially popular in China. His works are frequently staged, and recent productions have included the complete “Ring des Nibelungen” in Beijing, as well as “Der fliegende Holländer,” “Tristan und Isolde” and “Die Walküre” in Shanghai. Fudan University German studies professor Jiang Linjing links Wagner’s appeal to the emotional themes in his works, including longing, loyalty, betrayal and sacrifice, which she says can resonate with Chinese audiences.
The article also cites singer and vocal professor Christian Gerhaher, who says Chinese audiences listen with exceptional concentration and immerse themselves deeply in the works. After the performances, the opera house’s large halls empty and audiences make their way home by taxi, metro or bus.
Sources: FAZ.