It was a standing ovation for the Broadway classic, West Side Story, which premiered at the Beijing Exhibition Center on Sunday night. The staging of the internationally acclaimed musical was one of two performances that officially unveiled the Fourth Beijing International Theater Festival co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and the Beijing municipal government.

The Tony Award-winning musical debuted on Broadway in 1957, the brainchild of musician Leonard Bernstein and famed director Jerome Robbins. The musical combines romance, tragedy, drama, told through dialogue, singing and dancing, and is considered to be a modern-day version of Romeo and Juliet.

West Side Story soon became a classic in New York City. Its movie version hit silver screens worldwide in October 1961, winning 10 Oscar Awards, including Best Picture.

This is the first time that the musical has been staged in Beijing. On until May 11, organizers are working hard to make it the "best and biggest" in the musical's performance history.

The other season-opener was Princess Wencheng, jointly performed by China Peking Opera Theater and Tibet Opera Troupe and staged at the Poly Theater in Beijing last night.

Princess Wencheng fuses Peking and Tibetan operas together for the first time, which is widely believed by many drama experts to be a landmark for Tibetan Opera's development. The highlight of the performance was the Tibetan folk songs and dances that wowed the audience.

Over the next 25 days, artistes from China, the United States and Germany will stage 17 musicals, operas, puppet shows and dramas across Beijing's theaters.

Beijing People by famous playwright Cao Yu, Bai Lu Yuan adapted from a classic Chinese novel, and the opera Du Shiniang come highly recommended by theater aficionados. Fans of the theater can also expect experimental plays such as Prodigy Mozart by Germany's Theater for Children.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Rui, May 8, 2006)