Musicals singing all the way to the bank as popularity soars

The Chinese version of Mama Mia! by United Asia Live Entertainment. Aside from the musicals coming directly from the West, more are being rendered into Chinese and played by local artists. [Photo / Provided to China Daily]

Always a blockbuster, The Phantom of the Opera in Shanghai sold 5,000 tickets in May within just five hours to theatre-goers who got up as early as midnight to line up for a seat for the show to be staged in five months.

As part of an Asia-wide tour, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical will arrive this winter for a long run of more than 60 shows - scarcely enough to feed the city's appetite for musicals.

On average, one ticket is being sold every four seconds - a rate equivalent to train ticket sales during Spring Festival.

An increasing number of musicals have been staged in the city in recent years. Aside from the ones coming directly from London's West End or New York's Broadway with the same casts, settings and languages, more are being rendered into Chinese and played by local artists. They both receive warm approval from Chinese audiences.

"Musicals, among all live entertainment genres, perhaps most easily adapt to the capital market and can be commercialized," said Wang Hongmin, producer of musical Ip Man, a show that focuses on a martial art master's legendary life.

Investment and returns

Blockbuster musicals can produce good returns. Initial investors of Andrew Lloyd Webber's other masterpiece, Cats, reportedly received returns of 3,500 percent, while The Phantom of the Opera has grossed $5.6 billion worldwide, more than any film or television show, according to a report in The Economist.

"For successful shows, it takes no longer than 18 months to recover the cost. Profits keep arriving as long as it is on stage," said Wang.

Unlike films or television series, successful shows can run for years and can tour around the world - an example being Mama Mia!, one of Broadway's best-selling musicals, which has so far garnered a box office return of some 15 billion yuan ($2.44 billion) from audiences around the globe of more than 45 million.

The Chinese version of Mama Mia! by United Asia Live Entertainment (UALE) - the first time a Broadway-quality Western musical was performed in the language of the world's most populous nation, was not lost in translation. Instead, it boasted box office revenues of 130 million yuan by the end of a second round of a national tour in October 2012. It cost about 70 million yuan to produce.

After the success of Mama Mia!, UALE launched Chinese versions of Cats, and a romantic show called Finding Mr. Destiny, which was adapted from a popular South Korean musical. The Chinese version of Cats collected box office revenues of 35 million yuan from 61 shows when it debuted in Shanghai in 2012.

Out of the box

For Ip Man, a musical, which is looking to the international market and will debut in Singapore, a showcase for global musical lovers, the investment can be huge and returns need to be generated from various channels.

"The investment is in the multi-million-dollars. It is perhaps the most expensive musical in terms of cost," said Wang, producer of the show.

The biggest part of the expense goes into production, she said.