OREANDA-NEWS. February 20, 2015. A 30-meter-long bolt of lighting sweeps through the hall and dissolves into a thousand images, while acrobats leap from breathtaking heights into a shimmering pool of w,ater from which colorful fountains shoot into the air. Stages and galleries are transformed as if by magic. The Han Show is a two-hour extravaganza of color, motion, and music. The spectacular theatrical event celebrated its premiere on December 20, 2014, in Wuhan, a city of 8.3 million inhabitants at the confluence of the Yangtze and Han rivers in central China. The show sets a new benchmark. “There were three top shows worldwide before 2014: O and Le R?ve in Las Vegas and The House of Dancing Water in Macao,” says Franco Dragone. “Now there is only one — the biggest of them all: the Han Show.”

Dragone, who is an Italian theater director and a member of the Cirque du Soleil, knows this better than anyone else, because he himself designed the three shows, which he now plans to outdo in Wuhan. In cooperation with the British star architect Mark Fisher (who passed away in 2013) and the costume designer Tim Yip, Dragone spent four years preparing a comprehensive work of art that merges the stage show with the surrounding space. Affectionately referred to as the “Red Lantern” by locals, the Han Show Theater has become another Wuhan landmark, next to the nearly 1,200-year-old Yellow Crane Tower. Illuminated by an interplay of reddish lights, the building, which was inspired by a paper lantern, is reflected in the waters of East Lake, the largest urban lake in the world. Theater has a long tradition in Wuhan, which is the birthplace of the Han opera, one of the key predecessors of Peking opera.