On its opening night in May, the Guangzhou Opera House featured Puccini's 'Turandot,' directed by the Chinese filmmaker Chen Kaige, with Lorin Maazel conducting. The Swedish soprano Irene Theorin and the Canadian tenor Richard Margison sang the lead roles. The Opera House, designed by Zaha Hadid, then was host to Ballet Preljocaj, a French dance company performing the contemporary 'Snow White' with costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier. That was followed with a concert by Michael Bolton, the American soft-rock singer. Shu-Chun Lai, program director of the $200 million facility in southern China, is scouting for more contemporary dance performances and big musicals that have done well on Broadway or the West End of London. 'We're looking for signature shows, like 'The Phantom of the Opera' -- shows that are already well-known,' said Lai, who previously worked for the Beijing Music Festival. Like many cities in China, Guangzhou has built a top-notch performing arts arena in the hopes of lifting its cultural credentials and offering new forms of live entertainment to the increasing numbers of middle-class and wealthy Chinese. Those stages now need content, and that has Western producers and promoters looking at the Chinese market, and at ways to build new audiences and expand their activities -- and earnings. Yet many arts professionals from the West say China has a long way to go. Audiences remain small. Many of those who attend are not accustomed to paying for tickets. And after years of state-financed performances, the government is increasingly looking to the private sector to support both foreign and domestic arts troupes. Tracking the number of foreign performing arts troupes that visit China is difficult. According to data from the Ministry of Culture, the number of state-sponsored cultural exchanges seems to be declining; China's government invited 44 overseas artistic troupes to perform in 2009, half the number it sought in 2008. But 600 to 700 commercial performances from abroad were staged in 2009, a slight increase from 2008. Although China's government is pushing for a more market-oriented approach to performing arts, many theaters and arenas rely heavily on the China Arts and Entertainment Group, which is essentially a state-owned company that finances many foreign productions coming to the country, helps send Chinese performers abroad and organizes events like the Beijing Music Festival. Western multinational companies, which often sponsor arts programs in their home nations, are more likely to offer money than are Chinese companies, Lai said. China Merchants Bank and China Construction Bank are among Chinese companies that have started to sponsor performances, and more are showing interest, she added. Attendance at the new Guangzhou arena averaged about 60 percent of capacity in its first month, Lai said. 'We still need to do a lot of audience-building,' she said. 'People in Guangzhou are used to going out and eat at night. They're not used to going out to the theater and buy tickets.' 