Bavarian State Opera Sees ‘Astounding’ Shift in China’s Classical Scene

14 Oct 2025

The Bavarian State Opera, one of Europe’s most storied cultural institutions, has brought the first-ever opera festival to the Chinese mainland, staging two classic operas and a concert at the Shanghai Grand Theatre from Oct. 1 to 8.

The event, titled “Bavarian Resonance,” marks a significant expansion into Asia for the company and its resident orchestra, the Bavarian State Orchestra.

Founded in 1653, the Bavarian State Opera has long held a leading position in the European opera world, buoyed by public funding, a stable ensemble, and a vast repertoire of high-caliber productions. Its more than 500-year-old orchestra is considered one of Munich’s three world-class ensembles, alongside the Munich Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The company’s leadership passed to Serge Dorny in 2021. The Belgian-born general director spent the previous two decades as the artistic head of the Opéra National de Lyon in France, where he gained a reputation as a modernizer. He dramatically boosted attendance to 96% from 78% by revamping ticket policies, introducing new works, and launching community outreach projects that diversified an audience he once described as “averaging 70 years old and almost all long-term subscribers.” By the end of his tenure, viewers under 25 made up a quarter of the audience.

In the eyes of traditionalists, his approach could be considered an adventure. He insists that an opera house must confront contemporary questions rather than simply repeat the classics. He frequently invites film and theater directors to stage operas, champions contemporary works, and emphasizes reimagining masterpieces with new narrative methods.

This stems from his belief that opera should not be a genre “trapped in a mausoleum, waiting for us to bury it and close the gate.” Instead, he argues, it must be given a contemporary perspective. Only by constantly creating new works that offer “the present to the future,” he said, does an institution earn the right to use “the past.”

More importantly, at a time when he sees people “lacking perspective, lacking depth, lacking direction,” he believes an opera house must assume a greater social responsibility. “Art can give depth to a mediocre society that seems satisfied with consumerism,” he said. “Art should make people think, ask questions, and even fundamentally change their perceptions.”

On Sept. 22, the Bavarian State Orchestra made its debut at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. The following day, Serge Dorny sat for an interview with Caixin.

He said he found the changes in Chinese audiences and artists over the past 20 years “astounding,” crediting the country’s sustained efforts in arts education. Emphasizing that art is a powerful force for connecting people and building communities, Dorny suggested that the next step for China’s artistic institutions is to enhance professionalism and establish long-term planning.

The following is a transcript of the interview, edited for length and clarity.

Caixin: How does it feel to perform in China this time?

Serge Dorny: I first came to China in 2003, more than 20 years ago, during the China–France Cultural Exchange Year. At the time, I was leading the Opéra National de Lyon, and we performed in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. The audiences then were completely different from what we see today.

Before that, I worked with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the first Western orchestra ever to tour China. At the time, Western classical music felt alien in the local cultural environment — what in German we would call a Fremdkörper, something foreign to the body. Audiences were unfamiliar with the tradition; it was difficult to focus or find resonance, and interruptions, such as ringing phones, were common. The initial influx of Western culture in China felt like something not yet integrated into the cultural bloodstream. It needed time to be absorbed and made one’s own. Over the years, that process of assimilation has taken place.

In 2019, before the pandemic, I returned and attended Turandot with the Shanghai Opera. The audience was young, the house full, and everyone highly attentive. It left a deep impression.

Now, in 2025, we performed a demanding symphonic program last night — Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and the overture to Wagner’s Tannhäuser. The audience was concentrated, engaged and clearly well-prepared. In two decades, China has moved from relative unfamiliarity with Western repertoire to a sophisticated, knowledgeable public, this evolution continues to amaze me.

The Bavarian State Opera last visited China in 1984 with Wolfgang Sawallisch; this is our return after 41 years. I wasn’t here then, but one can imagine how different the cultural landscape must have been.

Today, China’s classical music scene is vibrant. For example, China is now the largest market in the world for Steinway & Sons pianos, an indicator of strong interest and enthusiasm for classical music and opera. Audiences have grown in musical literacy, education and cultural understanding.

I often serve on juries for singing and piano competitions. Twenty or thirty years ago, many Asian, and particularly Chinese, performers displayed impeccable technique but less emotional freedom. Performances could be accurate yet somehow detached. Today, Chinese musicians combine technical brilliance with genuine expressivity; the music feels truly alive.

This reflects cultural absorption. It’s like reading: at first you read the words; then you grasp the meaning; eventually you understand the spirit. Music is similar. You can play every note correctly, but the art lies in how the notes connect, in what happens between them. That understanding ripens over time.

Chinese artists are now making a strong mark internationally: pianist Lang Lang, soprano Fang Ying, and many others. China has become, in my words, an “art greenhouse.” The next step I believe, is further professionalizing its art institutions.

Running an opera house requires long-term planning. The Bayerische Staatsoper is one of Europe’s most renowned houses, and we typically plan four to five years ahead; we are already programming 2028, 2029, even 2030 to ensure the right artists and the highest standards. This long horizon is essential to quality.

Chinese arts institutions, I believe, should gradually build similar planning mechanisms. You have outstanding audiences and institutions that deserve to stand alongside world-class houses such as the Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, La Scala in Milan, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

The scale of cultural infrastructure now being built in China — arts centers, concert halls, opera houses, cultural complexes — is astonishing. Art plays a vital role in every society and community. China is an extraordinary country with a vast population. The critical question is: how do we sustain social cohesion in an intensely digital society?

We spend so much time on social media, on TikTok, on computers. The real challenge is connecting people to one another. Human society is built on encounter, on face-to-face experience in shared physical spaces.

We need spaces that create what I call “communion,” a word with almost religious resonance. It is related to the world “communication,” but goes beyond information exchange, this is the essence of human connection. The world today has become lonely. China has a population of over one billion, yet where is the sense of “community”? I don’t mean only China; this is a global phenomenon. We spend hours a day in front of digital screens and may not know our neighbors.

Art has a crucial role to play: it brings people together. China is building many cultural facilities precisely because the importance of art is recognized. But the question is: what purpose do these spaces serve? A venue must be animated by purpose; otherwise, it is meaningless. Art is special, it raises questions, nourishes the soul, and performs a social function by gathering people.

When you enter a concert hall, the lights go down and everyone listens to the same music together. Individual reactions may vary — some enjoy it, some don’t — but we share the same moment. We should cherish these institutions; they are not only factories of dreams, but also hubs of social communion.

I often use the word piazza, a public square, literally a people’s place, which effectively serves as a cultural center. The National Centre for the Performing Arts, for example, has done extensive education work. Education is essential. Chinese audiences respond differently today than 20 years ago because of education. The NCPA is an excellent example, and many other cities also have major venues.

The key now is to further develop professional capacity and strengthen institutional practice so these organizations can fully leverage the resources you have created and produce high-quality art.

“Respect the past, but look to the future”

You’ve said that future art must retain ambition, carry social responsibility, and stay closely connected to the world. How do you understand art’s “social responsibility”?

Art is not only for pleasure; it’s not merely about beauty or excellence, though those matter. When I hear an extraordinary performance, I am moved. When I see a painting, a sculpture, or read a book, I discover sometimes something that I didn’t know. Art opens new colors, sounds, spaces, new worlds. Its purpose is not to confirm what we already know, but to open new rooms within ourselves: a discovery of the self.

Art is patient; it endures. Beethoven was born centuries ago, yet his music still resonates. If you didn’t appreciate Beethoven 20 years ago, perhaps now you do. A painting you once couldn’t enter might, two decades later, unlock itself. This maturing of perception is something I’ve witnessed in Chinese audiences.

Art also carries social responsibility. It has the duty, and the power, to gather people. After reading a book, you share an experience with thousands of others who also read it; that shared experience builds community.

By social responsibility, I mean how we construct communities for the future. In the past, people gathered at post offices or churches; today those spaces no longer function in the same way. We need new spaces, and arts venues can serve this purpose. In concerts, opera and theater, we experience the same work in silence, and then we can talk: “Did you like it?” “No.” “I did.” Such conversations are increasingly rare.

Social responsibility also means preserving memory. Consider Mieczysław Weinberg, the Polish-born Russian composer who wrote the opera The Passenger. It tells of a woman traveling from Germany to South America in the 1960s with her diplomat husband; on the ship she confronts a past she never revealed, that during World War II she worked as a guard overseeing Jewish prisoners in a concentration camp.

The work addresses antisemitism. Today, when antisemitic acts re-emerge in Germany, France and elsewhere, it suggests that more than 80 years after 1940 we are forgetting the horrors of history, the European tragedies of war. Art’s responsibility is far-reaching: it creates and nourishes community, and it insists we remember not only beauty, but also horror.

This recalls your view that an opera house should “respect the past but look to the future.”

Yes. We do engage the past. In a museum, you see paintings from yesterday or centuries ago. When we perform Wagner, Beethoven or Mozart, we bring past music to life.

But past works cannot rely on the past alone for relevance; they must be connected to the present. That is why commissioning new works and supporting emerging painters, writers and composers is vital. Art didn’t stop yesterday and won’t stop today; it is a continuum.

All art reflects the era in which it was created. Listening to a Chinese opera or reading a 19th-century Chinese writer is like listening to the journalists of that time, shaped by social movements and historical events. Whether in Europe, China or elsewhere, art is bound to its day and gives voice to it.

We must keep creating so that what we witness today can be passed to the future. Only when we offer the present to the future do we earn the right to use the past. We live in 2025. If I asked you to wear 19th-century clothing, you would likely refuse; it belongs to another time. But seeing those garments in a museum, or on stage, can illuminate our own era and help us understand where we came from. The point is not to live in the past, but to let the past speak meaningfully to the present.

We cannot be a mere repository of memory, holding a past disconnected from today. The past must live in the present. Our lens changes, consider debates around decolonization or so-called “woke” perspectives: they reshape how we read 19th-century colonial history in the 21st century. Perspectives evolve.

If I focus only on the past, opera, music and art have no future, they become a mausoleum. I do not want to be the director of a mausoleum. I believe this is an art form that must remain vital today and tomorrow.

“Myth is both ancient and contemporary”

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Munich Opera Festival. Its theme centers on “myth,” opening with Don Giovanni and tracing the evolution of classical works from the Baroque through Romantic to Modernist periods. Why this theme, and how does it connect to the present?

Myth is both ancient and classical, yet ever contemporary. It asks universal questions: Where do we come from? Where are we going? It is not tied to any single culture or region.

Greek, Roman, Slavic or Germanic myths tell human stories about desire, guilt, power, fate and responsibility. We aim to show how these stories continue to shape our world: myths give us archetypes, figures and patterns, that help us interpret modern life. In an age of information overload, myth provides durable frameworks for meaning and ethics; it lets audiences recognize themselves across time.

Our 2025/26 season also draws on Jean-Paul Sartre’s idea that we are not predefined but define ourselves through our actions. You are not destined to become a fixed person; you shape your future through choices. It is not an external force that dictates your path. Whether you come from wealth or humble beginnings, each of us has the power to decide.

Opera makes this principle visible. In Faust or Rigoletto, the characters’ fates hinge on their decisions. As in Dead Poets Society, teachers and mentors open doors; opportunities can change your course. Life has no predetermined destiny, you have the right to choose your path.

Demographic makeup of concert halls

Many young people don’t engage with opera or other classical arts. Rather than paying high ticket prices, they scroll through TikTok. How will you realize your vision?

You’re right. But I would say: you just haven’t yet been to the opera house.

Those who work in art must take the initiative. We cannot retreat into an ivory tower and feel superior. We must open doors, build bridges, bring the energy of music and art to life, welcome audiences and reach out to embrace them.

That is the purpose of education. New technologies are crucial as well. We should integrate them into stagecraft and design, virtual reality and digital tools can be creative resources. We need a new language that honors the art while remaining true to its essence.

For too long, classical art, especially classical music, has seemed exclusive, as if it belonged to a small, privileged group. I reject that. During my tenure at the Opéra National de Lyon, 50% of the audience was under 45, and 25% under 25. I worked hard for this. Audiences are not “repeat consumers”; they are individuals. Our goal is for the audience to reflect the city outside, diverse, young, alive. The city’s demographics should be visible in our halls; that is our responsibility.

To achieve this, we should create pathways, clear, welcoming routes into the art, rather than speak of “lowering barriers.” Many people simply don’t feel invited. Questions like “When can I clap?” or “What should I wear?” can become obstacles. We should remove such hesitations. We must offer hybrid experiences, live, online, digital, immersive, so that spaces truly feel welcoming. It is possible and necessary.

During your time in Lyon, attendance rose from 78% to 96%, and one quarter of the audience was under 25. What concrete steps did you take?

I’m Belgian, and I first encountered “education, outreach and community work” at the London Philharmonic. In the 1990s, with little government subsidy, orchestras relied on earned income: ticket sales, sponsors, touring, commercial work. Musicians also went into schools and communities to work with people who had never bought a ticket. It showed me that art could leave the ivory tower; I was captivated by the energy it released.

When I took over the Lyon Opera in 2003, the situation was the opposite. The institution was 80% publicly funded, the average audience age was seventy, and almost everyone was a long-term subscriber, the same people returning again and again. It functioned like a private club. I thought: if we are funded by public money, we must be accessible for everyone. I took a big risk: we cut subscriptions from 90% to about 40% and shifted to single-ticket sales. We had to transform our communication, speaking not only to subscribers but to people with whom we had never engaged before.

There was a square beneath the opera house. I wanted to open a summer café there, but young people from the suburbs were dancing hip-hop. I got to know them and learned they were training for street-dance competitions. Instead of sending them away, we brought them inside to rehearse, providing a marble-floored room, a sound system and free access, on the sole condition that they respect the building. They trusted us; the opera house became their training base. They went on to win French and world titles. We created a fund to help them professionalize. The opera house began serving the community. Bit by bit, we built relationships with very diverse communities across Lyon.

In another project in Lyon’s eastern suburbs (around 50,000 residents, many from immigrant backgrounds, with high unemployment and school-dropout rates), we raised funds to send ten artists, musicians, actors, dancers, into schools every day. They used music to teach math and theater to teach history and French. We sustained the program for seven years and evaluated its impact. Children grew enthusiastic about learning because learning had become joyful.

You must understand the city you are in. Lyon has its own social fabric, with first- and second-generation immigrants: Italians and Portuguese in the 1960s; North Africans from Morocco and Algeria in the 1980s. In Munich, I took a different approach, because Munich is not Lyon.

If I came to Beijing, I would first learn the local context. The beauty is that every community has its own character. You don’t need to copy others, each place can create something unique. That is the essence of art. Art is not a department store or a luxury brand; it is something else entirely, a force that enriches and, at its best, changes lives.

Contact editors Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com) and Jonathan Breen (jonathanbreen@caixin.com)

caixinglobal.com is the English-language online news portal of Chinese financial and business news media group Caixin. Global Neighbours is authorized to reprint this article.

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