Hong Kong’s musical achievements deserve an ovation as it seeks to carve out a leading role on the world’s stages

Peter Gordon says the international accomplishments of local musicians and the success of the inaugural operatic singing competition show the city is hitting the right notes

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Armenian singer Varduhi Abrahamyan (centre) plays the lead role in an Opera Hong Kong production of Bizet’s Carmen. Bringing international stars to Hong Kong allows the company to enhance the skills of local singers.

Published: 5:03pm, 4 Jul 2018Updated: 4:12pm, 5 Jul 2018

Hong Kong, and indeed China, may not be in the 2018 World Cup, but we have in the past few weeks been scoring goals on different pitches.

In opera, that perhaps most sports-like of the arts (where else does the audience boo what they don’t like?), Hong Kong soprano Louise Kwong Lai-ling just debuted at the Rome Opera, singing Mimì, the lead role in Puccini’s La Bohème. An Italian reviewer wrote: “Kwong combines volume and an extremely pleasant timbre with a pleasant stage presence, and gave admirable body and voice to the romantic character of Mimì.”

Rome is pretty much Serie A as far as opera is concerned. And Kwong was in world-class company: she sang with tenor Giorgio Berrugi, well-known on opera stages from Milan to London, and Valentina Nafornița, who won the 2011 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

Kwong’s path to the Roman stage shows what a special achievement this is. Earlier this year, she was admitted to Fabbrica, the Young Artist programme of the Rome Opera. It admitted 15 of some 900 applicants – giving it an acceptance rate lower than Harvard University – of which just eight are singers. Kwong is not only the first Hong Kong artist to enter the programme since its founding in 2016, but also the first from China and from East Asia.

Kwong will see further action with Rome Opera as Micaëla in Carmen in July. In 2019, she is due to sing, among other things, the role of the spurned lover Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.