As the Royal Opera House Muscat enters its fifth year of operation, the inaugural opera, Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, returns in all its glory. Performed in October 2011, the original production was commissioned from the famous Italian filmmaker and set designer Franco Zeffirelli. One of the world’s most important opera interpreters, Zeffirelli is renowned for gorgeous productions with authentic detailing. The magnificent sets and costumes that Zeffirelli designed remain the property of the Royal Opera House Muscat and will be used for the upcoming performances on the 1st, 3rd and 4th of October 2015.
The opera will be performed once again by the prestigious Fondazione Arena di Verona.

Famous director Franco Zeffirelli remarks: "I am very thankful to the Royal Opera House Muscat organization for the invitation and for making possible my trip to Oman. It will be a pleasure to see my production of Turandot coming back to life again!"

Turandot is loved most of all for its beautiful and evocative music. Puccini (1858-1924) was ahead of his time as a master of innovative orchestration, using new, powerfully expressive motifs along with evocative Oriental melodies to give the music greater drama and an exotic flavour. Set in ancient imperial China, the opera unfolds a compelling story based on a twelfth-century tale by a Persian poet. Turandot is a princess of legendary beauty whose heart is cold as ice. She believes that Princess Lou-Ling, a powerful ancestor who once ruled the kingdom, is part of her own psyche.  Lou-Ling reigned in peace and happiness until the fateful day when a conquering prince seized the throne and savagely murdered her.
Vowing never to let a man into her life, Turandot is bent on revenge and self-protection. An imperial law decrees that any man who desires to marry Princess Turandot must first attempt to solve three almost impossible riddles; and if he fails, he will be executed. The fair young Prince of Persia has just suffered this fate when the heroic Calaf, Prince of a vanquished realm, arrives on the scene and falls in love with the fatefully beautiful princess. The morning after his famous declaration “I shall win!!! I shall win”, Calaf solves the riddles, but an enraged Turandot refuses to marry him. Calaf’s love is so great that offers to sacrifice his life for Turandot’s satisfaction. What happens next is quite unexpected.

The 2011 production was of a grandeur seldom seen in recent times on the great opera stages of the world. Indeed, the regal splendour of the sets might well have surpassed the decoration of the imperial court in ancient China. An imperial palette of burnished gold, ethereal blue, and pale ivory was chosen for the sets as well as the costumes.

Acting Director-General of the Royal Opera House Muscat, Umberto Fanni remarks: “Franco Zeffirelli’s genius is to create staging that complements the action and flows with the music. His production has tremendous visual impact. For Turandot, Puccini turned to the Far East as a setting for what would be his final opera, as he had done nearly twenty years earlier for Madama Butterfly. The allure of the Far East was widespread among composers, writers, artists and designers of Western Europe during the early twentieth century, and so Turandot is an enchanting Western fantasy of what ancient China might have been. Zeffirelli makes this fantasy seem wonderfully real.”

A cast of more than 250 opera stars, singers, actors, musicians and chorus will soon fly from Verona to Muscat.  But this time, the fifty extras will not come from Verona as they were locally recruited. ROHM’s 2015 Turandot features exciting new talent, including the twenty-seven-year-old rising star, Andrea Battistoni who conducts the orchestra, along with the fabulous Italian tenor, Carlo Ventre who sings Calaf, and Swedish soprano Iréne Theorin, who has been hailed by opera-britannia.com as ‘the world’s reigning Turandot’, in the title role.

Carlo Ventre is a spinto tenor, that is, a singer whose voice has both lyric and dramatic capability and can ‘slice’ through the sound of the orchestra. When the plot reaches its first great climax Carlo will sing one most beautiful arias in all of opera. Nessun Dorma (None shall Sleep) which became ‘immortal’ as the signature aria of Luciano Pavarotti.
Iréne Theorin whose voice has been described as “pure and gleaming”, sang her first Turandot in 2005, and over the past decade has perfected her interpretation of the role. And one of the leading singers from the 2011 performance returns. Irina Lungu who sang Turandot now stars in the role of Liu, the loyal slave girl who is secretly in love with Calaf and sacrifices her life for him. With her shimmering voice full of ‘brightness, warmth and bloom’ (New York Times), Lungu who now ranks among the world’s leading opera singers, is bound to enrich the production.

After the spectacular success of the Jonas Kauffman Concert and a grand celebration of the Thirtieth Anniversary of The Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra, ROHM’s ‘World-Class Quality Season’ continues with an exciting encore of its great inaugural opera. Those who saw Turandot in 2011 will have another chance to immerse themselves in this sumptuous experience, and those seeing it for the first time will witness a production of legendary magnificence.

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Royal Opera House Muscat
International Press Office
Skill & Music
Paolo Cairoli - Irene Sala - Floriana Tessitore
rohmuscat.press@fastwebnet.it