ENG-1997 — Page 432

RECREATION, SPORTS AND THE ARTS

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camp, music interflows and overseas concert tour, 315 regular concerts and district activities were organised and 129 541 people enjoyed the Music Office's services during the year.

Cultural Events

Hong Kong Arts Festival

In 1997 the Hong Kong Arts Festival Society celebrated its 25th anniversary. The 1997 Festival was highly successful with over 94 000 tickets sold representing 91 per cent attendance and generating a record $21 million in box office revenue. Highlights from this year's festival included Tan Dun's boldly original new opera Marco Polo, two programmes by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, a new dance piece by Pina Bausch inspired by Hong Kong, the acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Royal Shakespeare Company, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato by the Mark Morris Dance Group and Chess Man by Beijing's Central Experimental Theatre.

Hong Kong Fringe Festival

The Hong Kong Fringe Festival has developed since 1982 from an annual open arts festival into a successful year-round operation which gives Hong Kong's emerging artists the opportunity to hone their skills and create new works.

The 1997 Fringe Festival was staged over three weeks in January. Some 300 000 people attended performances and exhibitions by more than 170 groups and individual artists from Hong Kong and overseas.

Provisional Urban Council Presentations

Cultural Presentations

The Provisional Urban Council organised a total of 453 performances of various performing arts programmes attracting 323 635 people. Music highlights included concerts by the China Broadcast Chinese Orchestra, the China National Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the China National Symphony Orchestra Chorus, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Midsummer Classics by the Lille National Orchestra and celebrated virtuosi Cheryl Studer, Pinchas Zukerman, Mischa Maisky, Ivo Pogorelich and Anne-Sophie Mutter.

Highlights of dance programmes included performances by the Guangdong Modern Dance Company and the Formosa Aboriginal Singing and Dance Troupe in support of Dance On '97 - the 12th International Dance Festival and Conference organised by the Hong Kong Dance Alliance. Theatre programmes featured a wide variety of works by local creative forces such as No Man's Land, Theatre du Pif, the Exploration Theatre and the Chung Ying Theatre Company.

Operatic offerings included a newly commissioned production of the Cantonese opera Till the Sea Runs Dry and the Italian opera Aida.

To commemorate the reunification of Hong Kong with China, the council sponsored the presentations of The Last Emperor by the Hong Kong Ballet, the Academy Music Festival featuring the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the Reunification Music Festival offering a series of concerts with a wide music spectrum.