The Ice Princess returns this Season with her hot-blooded Prince once more ready to challenge, thaw and win her. Turandot is one of the most famously spectacular productions of The Royal Opera, evoking in Andrei Serban’s now-classic staging the pageantry, colour and savagery of ancient China that forms the setting for Puccini’s great and final opera.
It is an oriental fairytale of disguised identities, riddles, ritual executions and – of course – powerful, triumphant love. Besides its great tenor aria ‘Nessun dorma’, the music ranges from the exotic and portentous as the moon rises at the start, through the grandeur and mysticism of Turandot’s riddles, to the tragic beauty of the servant girl Liù’s appeals to and final sacrifice for her beloved master, Prince Calaf.
Young, acclaimed Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti returns to conduct two casts of great international voices, headed up by José Cura and Iréne Theorin as Prince and Princess, then three performances in January by Johan Botha and Jennifer Wilson, a thrilling and fast-risen star in this role making her Covent Garden debut.
Always popular with audiences, The Royal Opera’s Turandot offers wonderful music and fine spectacle with its huge chorus, many dancers and world-class singing.