Interview: Paddy Lui

Opera is not a sound you expect to hear drifting from the boardroom of a multinational conglomerate. A symphony of trilling BlackBerries, maybe, but not the booming voice of a Chinese baritone.

The vocals in question are blasting from a giant TV screen that looks remarkably high-tech in contrast to the otherwise antique-style decor of the spacious conference room. Watching from the comfort of a vintage armchair is Paddy Lui, an executive director of the K. Wah Group, a company started by her father, Lui Che-woo.

“Do you like opera?” she asks hopefully as I enter the resplendent hub of the group’s North Point headquarters. Lui may well be one of Hong Kong’s most successful businesswomen, but when it comes to discussing opera, she’ll always make time in her relentless schedule. While sipping tea from dainty porcelain cups, we watch The Chinese Orphan, a production staged earlier this year by Opera Hong Kong (OHK), the non-profit organisation Lui helped found in 2003. She is also the chair of OHK and uses her expansive business contacts to secure much-needed funding.

With Lui at the helm, OHK has become a firmly established part of the city’s cultural scene. The company has staged grand-scale operas such as The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, La Bohème and Carmen.

Lui’s own musical education began during childhood. “I studied at a convent school and the choirs gave me a natural enjoyment of music. My father also loves music, so I grew up listening to many beautiful songs,” she says.

Although her passion for the arts never waned, academic and professional ambitions soon took centre stage. After being schooled in Hong Kong, she moved to Canada to study commerce at McGill University, and later trained as an accountant in London. “As a child, I actually dreamed of being a scientist,” she reveals. “But I was told my only career option would be teaching, which sounded less exciting. My father was very keen to have his children work alongside him, so the obvious next choice was the family business.”

Born in 1929, Lui Che-woo began his career selling car parts from a small shop on Nathan Road. Now the billionaire octogenarian oversees the company’s burgeoning portfolio, which spans property development, construction, hospitality, leisure and entertainment. One of the company’s recent milestones was the opening of Galaxy Macau, into which the patriarch invested US$1.9 billion. Paddy joined the family business in 1980 and is currently executive director of K. Wah International Holdings Limited and Galaxy Entertainment Group. Her brother Francis is the group’s vice chairman. Lui admits following in her father’s footsteps has been no easy task. “He’s very demanding, but a brilliant mentor. And through all the company’s ups and downs, he’s shown incredible perseverance and limitless vision.”

When she’s not overseeing K. Wah’s residential projects, such as Marinella in Aberdeen and Chantilly on Stubbs Road, Lui is something of a songbird herself. The talented soprano attends regular singing lessons, and has taken master classes with Italian soprano Wilma Vernocchi and New Zealand’s Kiri Te Kanawa. Earlier this year, Lui performed two songs at a fundraising concert for OHK. “I actually have a very small voice and am quite a conservative person, but the vocal training has helped me become more expressive and has given my voice more resonance.”

As The Chinese Orphan reaches its dramatic climax, Lui encourages me to sit back and experience “the magic of opera.” Before she raises the volume for full effect, she shares her vision for OHK. “It’s all about enhancing the appreciation of opera in Hong Kong and promoting local talent. I firmly believe that opera should be given a permanent niche in a culturally vibrant city such as ours. We don’t want opera to be elitist. We want to make it fun and easy to understand for the general public, especially the young.”

We also spoke with Hing Chao and Adriana Alvarez-Nichol about the rise of Latin American art.