Broadway blockbusters “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera” will land in China at the end of this month, brought by their creator, Briton Andrew Lloyd Webber himself.

Classical episodes from the impresario’s ten most famous pieces will be presented by Elaine Paige, dubbed the “First Lady of Musical Theater” in Britain, and Fei Xiang, an American-Chinese performer.

Fei, who has performed on Broadway, said, “Such concerts are essential to introduce musicals to Chinese audiences. They can get a closer look at this great art over a short period of time.”

Chinese may be familiar with the name of Broadway in New York when talking about musicals, but the dominant plays there are actually from Great Britain, and created by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

When “Titanic” hit US$1 billion in box office income, “Phantom of the Opera” had already earned more than US$2.7 billion, and the figure will continue to surge as the musical is staged around the world.

Encouraged by China’s market potential, the producer of Webber’ s musicals expressed the hope of building a musical theater in Beijing, where at present the only venue for staging musicals is the Great Hall of the People.

(People’s Daily 09/24/2001)