Turandot

Production sponsors

To mark the centennial anniversary of Giacomo Puccini’s death, the Greek National Opera has commissioned two leading artists of the opera scene to create a new production of Turandot, the composer’s final opera. The production is to be staged by Andrei Șerban – one of the most celebrated theatre and opera directors working anywhere today, internationally renowned for his innovative and iconoclastic directorial approach. Alongside the sensational career he has carved out for himself at theatres across Europe and America, and his teaching at Columbia University in New York, Șerban has also directed iconic opera productions at the world’s most major opera houses and festivals, some of which –such as his Turandot in London, Werther in Vienna, and Lucia di Lammermoor in Paris– have remained in repertory and continue to be performed over the decades.

The production’s sets and costumes are to be created by the great, globally renowned Greek designer Chloé Obolensky in what is her first collaboration with the GNO. Obolensky began working in the theatre as an assistant to Yannis Tsarouchis and an associate of the Visconti collaborator Lila de Nobili, and went on to work closely with Peter Brook, creating sets and costumes for a series of his iconic theatre and film productions, including The Mahabharata. Her work for the opera includes historic productions for the Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence Festivals, La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the English National Opera, La Monnaie, and the Opéra Comique in Paris, while her work on the production of Antigone directed by Lefteris Vogiatzis and presented at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus also garnered rave reviews.

Giacomo Puccini’s final opera –Turandot– is the grandest of them all. The plot unfolds in another era, in far-flung, unfamiliar China, where Princess Turandot is to marry whoever can answer the three riddles she sets. Those who tried and failed paid with their lives. Dazzled by her exquisite beauty, a prince –a stranger– insists on trying his luck, and succeeds. But, even though he solves her riddles, Turandot refuses to marry him. The prince offers her the chance to free herself of the obligation – if, that is, she can discover his name before the break of dawn.

The roots of this tale lie in Persian poetry dating back to the 12th century. In 1762, the story of Turandot was adapted into a play by the Venetian Carlo Gozzi, and later by the German Friedrich Schiller, with Puccini inspired by the latter version. His score combines light-hearted Commedia dell’arte details drawn from Gozzi with the deep lyricism that pervades all his operas, but also incorporates an element of grandeur that reflects his conception of Imperial China. In 1924, Puccini died before he could complete the work, leaving the opera unfinished. Turandot was completed by the composer Franco Alfano –on the basis of Puccini’s sketches– back in 1926, while the composer Luciano Berio proposed a new and different ending for the opera in 2001.