For theatre and music fans around the world, the golden autumn ushers in new seasons or galas of ballets, operas, concerts and dramas. Beijing and Shanghai, two major cultural centres in China, are no exception.

In Beijing, the ongoing Eighth Beijing Music Festival, which raised its curtain in mid-October, is expected to arrive at its grand finale this weekend when the Berlin Philharmonic gives two concerts on its return trip to China's capital, after a 26-year interval.

In Shanghai, the month-long fiesta of the Seventh Shanghai International Arts Festival, which started on October 18, has reached quite a few climaxes not only with its variety programmes of opera, dance and drama but also with free open-air shows.

The two separate but major music and arts events have gathered, arguably, the best the worlds of music and theatre have to offer. Running for their seventh or eighth years, they have garnered support from the Ministry of Culture and sponsorship from various big home and international businesses.

The venues for the events have also been upgraded. In Shanghai, for example, in addition to the Shanghai Grand Theatre in downtown, the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre, occupying a total area of nearly 40,000 square metres in Pudong, has just opened and will house the Shanghai debut concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic next week.

In the heart of Beijing, extensive interior decoration and installation of reportedly the state-of-the-art equipment is under way at the China National Theatre. Incidentally, Paul Andreu takes credit for the designs of both the China National Theatre and Shanghai Oriental Art Centre. While the former is in the shape of a glassy shell, the latter features five blossoming petals and forms a beautiful butterfly orchid in full bloom when viewed from the sky.

For all the glitter and glamour of the participating stars, ensembles and the venues, old problems have persisted and new ones have emerged.

Tickets for the shows have remained expensive with the highest reaching 2,000 yuan (US$246) in Beijing and 4,000 yuan (US$493) in Shanghai. At the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts in New York, one of the international cultural centres, the tickets for the Metropolitan Opera's "Aida" this coming Saturday are selling at US$220.

As performing arts agencies claim that the most expensive tickets are easier to sell and companies fall for them for public relations purposes, many people - including fans - would grapple for a free ticket, despite the Ministry of Culture's new regulation against such a practice.

That is especially serious in Beijing, where public relations work is all the rage.

Meanwhile, home ensembles seem to have a harder time attracting sponsors and promotions for their participation in the events. The publicity for their shows can hardly match those from overseas, even though the tickets for their shows are conspicuously lower, with the highest prices reaching between 380 and 680 yuan (US$47-84).

Moreover, quite a few home ensembles have reasons to shy away from such events as they have difficulties raising money for creating new shows or drawing good enough box office revenues for their own seasons.

Above all, television, the Internet and other leading mass media have kept bombarding the public, especially the young, with instant fame, sparkle and money of pop culture that do not involve serious learning and hard efforts.

Meanwhile, the young, especially the teenagers who may become future theatre and concert fans, are burdened with so much school work that their parents must think twice before taking them to good performing arts, except catering to the children's needs to see the pop stars.

All these problems combined have erected obstacles to the long-term development of a broader public base for the fine performing arts and for the improvement of home-based performing arts ensembles.

And all those require solutions so that the two wonderful arts events and others like them will continue to enrich the cultural life of not only the two leading Chinese cities with ambitious drives to become international metropolises but also the whole country.

Email: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/03/2005 page4)