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APRIL10,
2000 VOL. 155 NO. 14
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Fritz
Hoffmann for TIME
A couple look over the program of a performance by a Russian ballet
troupe inside Shanghai's Grand Theater
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Art
Rivalry
Reviving
an age-old feud, Beijing and Shanghai fight for the title of cultural
capital
By HANNAH BEECH Shanghai
When Shanghai held the soft opening of its new art museum last month,
it was more than a celebration of culture. The converted colonial building
with state-of-the-art lighting and sleek marble and wood walls is also
a direct challenge to Beijing, Shanghai's eternal rival for the title
of China's cultural capital. The museum is simply the latest in a building
spree that has taken dour, dusty Beijing by surprise. Just two years ago,
the visiting Cleveland Orchestra had to play in a Shanghai gymnasium because
there were no appropriate venues. But today the city boasts the new art
gallery, an elegant museum for antiquities, a luminous $150 million theater
and one of the largest libraries in the world. A $200 million science
center is planned for 2001. "Shanghai's museums and cultural centers don't
just aim to be the best in China," says Chen Xiejun, executive director
of the Shanghai Museum. "We're competing to be among the best in the world."
Beijing isn't about to concede the battle, however. For one thing, the
capital is counting on its cutting-edge artistic tradition to outshine
Shanghai's flash and cash. After all, when the lights go down, Beijing
shakes off its stiff exterior and begins to pulse with live-band bars,
wild performance art and enough Peking opera to keep the conventionalists
sated. Shanghai's building frenzy has also galvanized Beijing's bulldozers
and jackhammers. Although its bars and salons breed a raw artistic energy,
the capital lacks infrastructure worthy of the city's talent. Its showcase
Forbidden City Palace Museum, for instance, offers only dusty exhibits
obscured by money-saving, low-watt bulbs. All that changed last week with
the start of construction of Beijing's National Theater, a glitzy $420-million
monument to modernity just minutes from the imperial splendor of the Forbidden
City.
Designed by French architect Paul Andreu, the voluptuous glass and titanium
complex will encompass an opera house, a 2,500-seat theater, a 2,000-seat
concert hall and an experimental theater complete with rotating stage.
Former Premier Zhou Enlai first conceived of a national stage in 1958,
but plans languished during both the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution
and the no-frills practicality of the Deng Xiaoping era. It took karaoke-loving
President Jiang Zemin to convince the geriatric State Council that Beijing
needed to replace its fraying theaters with a new cultural landmark. It's
the city's biggest undertaking since Mao Zedong's mausoleum was built
in 1977.
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ALSO IN TIME
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COVER:
Space
Visions of the 21st Century -- The Final Frontier has long captured
our imaginations. We explore how the coming century will push its
boundaries back
CAMBODIA: Blind Justice
Relatives of those murdered by the Khmer Rouge fear that a proposed
tribunal will let former guerrilla leaders walk free
CHINA: Dotcommiebashing
An official chat room is one of the country's liveliest forums
INDIA: Brand Kargil
Advertisers look to make money from patriotic fervor
BASEBALL: Play Ball!
America's National Pastime opens its season in, gasp, Tokyo
We're Outta Here:
The trickle of Asian exports to the U.S. big leagues could soon become
a flood
Extended Interview:
Kazuhiro Sasaki, Japan's most accomplished relief pitcher
CULTURE: Urban Warfare
Beijing and Shanghai are spending millions to vie for bragging rights
as China's cultural capital
TRAVEL WATCH:
Afoot and Afloat, Kerala Is Worth the Journey
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Beijing
sorely needs such a complex if it hopes to attract the top-flight performances
that have begun flocking to Shanghai's Grand Theater. The top venues in
Beijing, the Great Hall of the People and the Century Theater, are such
acoustic nightmares that Luciano Pavarotti publicly despaired for the
future of opera in the Chinese capital. By contrast, when Tan Dun performed
the China premiere of The Gate at the Grand Theater last month, Shanghai's
glitterati were thrilled by the crystalline sound. "There's nowhere in
Beijing that could have done justice to this performance," says accountant
Ellen Tan, who paid $85 for her ticket--more than the average Chinese
makes in a month. "The aisles would be dirty and the audience would be
full of old bureaucrats who wouldn't know when to clap."
Greg
Girard/Contact Press Images for TIME
Composer Tan Dun's China premiere of The Gate at the Grand Theater
last month thrilled Shanghai's glitterati
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Such
arriviste snobbery seems to have hardened Beijing's resolve to do whatever
it can to foil its rival. When Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma was scheduled
to join the Tan Dun extravaganza, Beijing reminded Shanghai that all international
performers first had to be vetted by the Ministry of Culture. Two weeks
before the performance, Beijing was still dithering. "The Shanghai government
had already given its approval," says Jane Huang, executive director of
the Committee of 100 Cultural Institute, which organized the multimedia
event. "But with Beijing taking so long, Ma pulled out of the show."
And forget about Shanghai getting any financial help from Beijing. While
some other regional theaters receive central government subsidies, the
Grand Theater receives nothing. That means that while performances in
Beijing are packed with freeloading senior cadres and official media types,
Shanghai must find paying customers and corporate sponsors. Much of the
cash flow for the arts comes courtesy of Shanghai businessman Bonko Chan,
who has almost single-handedly revived the city's cultural scene. The
flamboyant, self-styled impresario has funded half-a-dozen operas, including
Aida and La Traviata. "I made a $100 bet with friends that I could bring
world-class opera to Shanghai," says Chan, 36, who runs a state freight-forwarding
company by day. "I won the bet, but I spent half-a-million dollars in
the process."
For the moment, Beijing is still a bigger draw for young artists and performers--even
though a lack of theaters limits many dance and music troupes to just
one or two shows a year. "It's hard to be a starving young artist in Shanghai
because the city is so expensive," says Lorenz Helbling, owner of Shanghart
Gallery, one of the city's few private art spaces. More importantly, despite
its legion of stern-faced cadres, Beijing somehow is more receptive to
avant-garde impulses. "If a writer wants to publish something with sensitive
content, he'll have much better luck trying in Beijing," says Wang Zhousheng,
a writer and associate research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Sciences.
Shanghai's notoriously conservative culture czars have already foiled
several big-name events. In an embarrassing episode two years ago, the
Shanghai Culture Bureau banned one of the city's opera troupes from participating
in a Lincoln Center Festival production of The Peony Pavilion because
it was deemed "pornographic" and "superstitious." When American jazz trumpeter
Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra toured China in
February, Shanghai's cadres almost barred the Grammy-winning musician
from performing at the Shanghai Center Theater. Jazz, they sniffed, just
wasn't serious enough to merit such an exclusive venue. Marsalis faced
no such problems in the capital. "In Beijing, there are so many cadres
from so many different ministries that we could play them off one another,"
says a promoter involved with the event. "In Shanghai the channels were
much narrower, so there was less room for negotiation."
Ultimately, the question is whether Shanghai's money will win out over
Beijing's moxie. Awash with cash, Shanghai is perpetually dabbling in
new ventures. Internationally acclaimed painter Chen Yifei is contemplating
collaborating in a production of La Bohème this fall. Composer Tan Dun
has already agreed to a China premiere of his next opera, Tea, in Shanghai
in 2002 (with help from Bonko Chan and his advertising team). Beijing
remains secure, however, knowing that its inventive film studio and avant-garde
dance and music groups far outstrip Shanghai's talent. "Beijing will always
be the cultural center of China," says Chan. "But with money to import
top stars, Shanghai has the potential to be the international arts capital
of Asia." Such diplomatic equivocation isn't likely to dampen the rivalry
between the two cities. But at least it provides the possibility of a
world where Beijing can rock and Shanghai can roll--and all of China can
move to the beat.
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