The Chinese version of the British smash-hit musical Mamma Mia! has swept Chinese theatergoers off their feet, or at least the enraptured faces of audience members leaving the theaters after witnessing the spectacle seem to suggest as much.
The Chinese version of Mamma Mia! is the 14th incarnation of the musical, succeeding the show’s Italian, Japanese, German, Broadway and other reworkings. At the premiere in Shanghai in July 2011, a target of 200 performances was set by the show’s producers. With half of these performances already under its belt, the show continues to enjoy wild popularity: audience numbers have already topped 150,000 and box-office receipts have passed RMB 45 million. It seems there will be no problems recovering production costs.
“Many people comment on the fact that the Chinese version of Mamma Mia! has been warmly received by domestic audiences, but what’s on our mind at present is whether this test case will turn out to be a groundbreaking example of integrating Chinese musical theater with a world-class production,” said Zhang Yu, president of the China Arts and Entertainment Group (CAEG), and one of sponsors of Mamma Mia! in China. A Wild Success
According to Jin Fuzai, a renowned domestic composer and dean of the Musical Theater Department at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, ordinary Chinese began to study musical theater as an art form in 1982, just a handful of years after the start of China’s reform and opening-up. In those early years, musicals were mostly imported from abroad and performed by foreign casts.
In 2000 a team sent by musical master Andrew Lloyd Webber began investigating the potential in the Chinese market. It is said that one pessimistic director from the Shanghai Municipal Performance Company told this team that musicals could only maintain a run of about 10 performances in Shanghai. The next year, the Webber Musical Festival was kicked off at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. It presented classic scenes from Webber’s hit musicals to Chinese audiences for the first time, including scenes from Les Misérables, The Sound of Music and Cats; these shows went on to twice tour a dozen domestic cities. The Lion King in its turn had a run of 105 performances in Shanghai in 2007, setting a record for musical performances in China. These feats are testimonies to the huge potential in China’s musical market.
Nevertheless, it was not until the debut of the Chinese version of Mamma Mia! that a Chinese team made its first attempt at purchasing a copyright and reproducing a classic musical. This marks an important milestone in the history of musical development in China.
Print
Save