Three Divas In China...
[Shenzhen
Daily Report]
Three divas to illuminate summer
stage
IN July and August, Beijing will host
three diva singers: Whitney Houston from the United States, ¡°A-Mei¡± Chang
Hui-mei from Chinese Taiwan and Faye Wong from Hong Kong.
Fifteen years after her last solo concert in Hong Kong, Whitney Houston will
make her long-awaited debut on the Chinese mainland this coming Sunday. The
concert will be held in the Beijing National Olympic Sports Center,
according to the concert¡¯s Chinese sponsor, Poly Culture and Arts Co. Ltd.
At the age of 40, Houston is widely known in China for her rendition of I
Will Always Love You from the 1992 movie Bodyguard, in which she starred
opposite Kevin Costner. The six-time Grammy winner will review most of her
classics at the Beijing concert in appreciation of her Chinese fans, sources
with her music company BMG revealed.
Tickets priced from 180 yuan (US$22) to 1,600 yuan have sold well, with the
cheapest already sold out, the sponsor said.
Houston has harbored a long wish to perform in China. The Chinese sponsor
will help her fulfill the wish by booking her despite her recent drug
scandal. It is said the singer would come to China along with her husband
and daughter. She was quoted as saying her daughter had been looking forward
to her first Asian trip.
According to Ms. Lu who was in charge of selling tickets for Faye Wong¡¯s
concert, Wong had postponed her Beijing concert from May to Aug. 28. Lu said
Beijing audiences were enthusiastic about Wong¡¯s upcoming concert and many
had called to book tickets.
Wong¡¯s concert will be held at the Workers¡¯ Stadium and the lowest price
of the tickets is 100 yuan. A source said 60 percent of the concert tickets
would be priced below 400 yuan. According to box-office statistics, so far,
tickets worth 3 million yuan have been sold.
The source also said that an anti-counterfeit technique had been used to
print the tickets for Wong¡¯s concert.
Chang Hui-mei is said to have paid much attention to her forthcoming Beijing
concert July 31, which will be staged five years after her first.
¡°My heart, my sincerity, my way of expression and my passion will never
change. I¡¯m looking forward to the concert. I will give every audience a
beautiful memory. And I will make this concert a lifelong memory for me,¡±
she said.
Besides her own songs, Chang will also sing some songs that Beijing people
like and that were first sung by other singers. The problem is that the list
of the songs has yet to be decided. The sponsor has begun asking the public
for their favorite songs by taking calls from anybody who has a
recommendation.
(Wu Yan)
NEWSFILE: 21 JULY 2004
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