Last Updated on June 13, 2026
The China Syndrome
5.0 out of 5.0 stars
With the crash of a gong or six, director Andrei Zerban’s classic 1984 production of Puccini’s final work Turandot, which combines elements of opera, Chinese theatre and the Italian dramatic traditions of Commedia dell’arte, is back at Covent Garden for a 16th revival. It’s an extraordinary spectacle with acrobatic dancers and dragons gracing this grandest of grand operas, along with fabulous singing and iconic staging.
The three-act Turandot was left unfinished by the composer, who died before its completion with the final act being put together by composer Franco Alfano. The story of Turandot with its libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, is based on a twelfth-century Persian epic poem which may have influenced French writer François Pétis de la Croix’s collection of tales ‘Les Mille et un jours’ (The Thousand and One Days) that included a tale of a princess Turandokht. This in turn, led to a play by Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi in 1762 who transplanted the story to China from its original Persian location, which inspired Friedrich Schiller’s 1801 drama that Puccini turned into an opera.
The composer’s dramatic bitonal opening announces the modishness of a composition that combines early 20th-century modernity with fashionable (at the time) orientalism and Puccini’s astonishingly melodic compositional gift. The score also looks forward to the musical theatre of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Designer Sally Jacobs’ set is similarly epic. There is a dark red lacquered multi-storeyed palace with huge death masks dripping blood and long scarlet ribbons coursing down onto the stage. We are made viscerally aware of the societal bloodlust with red-masked servants baying for blood and living in a dystopian world centred around a death cult.
The opera’s narrative revolves around the eponymous Chinese Princess Turandot. She is cold and cruel, locked into a sense of virginal destiny that is intertwined with her ancestral lineage. Turandot has vowed to only marry a suitor who can solve her three riddles; failure results in execution. The story begins outside the Imperial Palace, where Ossian Huskinson’s stentorian Mandarin is wheeled in on a wooden scaffolding platform. He announces the execution of the Prince of Persia for failing to answer Turandot’s riddles. The prince is played by a child to emphasise the cruelty of the dramatic world we are inhabiting.
There is a cartoonishly fearsome executioner dressed like a mythical sea monster, sharpening his sabre on a huge whetstone.
Amid the crowd is our hero Prince Calaf played by South Korean tenor powerhouse SeokJong Baek in his signature role, powerful and defiant in blue and gold. The singer transitioned from being a baritone to a tenor over lockdown, retraining his voice and extending his range on his own in a church, which is no mean feat. Technically flawless and dramatically impressive, SeokJong Baek is no smooth ‘Latin lover’, bringing a more macho presence to his persona and vocal delivery than is often the case. He delivers a sublime ‘Nessun Dorma’ (None shall sleep) that shimmers in the dusky light. Calaf recognises his exiled father in the crowd at the young prince’s execution. Timur, a deposed king who is being hunted by ‘the usurper of the throne’, is appropriately played by Polish bass Adam Palka as a weak and vulnerable ancient with a tremulous vocal delivery.
Timur has been travelling with his loyal servant, Liù, who has a major crush on Calaf, who apparently smiled at her once. It’s not a basis for a successful relationship. Russian soprano Anna Princeva is wonderful in the role, combining submissiveness and strength. She knows her place in the social order and the unrealistic nature of her amor. Liù is willing to sacrifice herself to save Calaf (who has fallen hard for the ice-princess Turandot), delivering a beautifully controlled ‘Signore, ascolta’ (Sir, listen) that transmutes the emotional simplicity of the pentatonic scale into a thing of sublimity. In this world, Turandot and her emperor father are seen as divine, allowing Puccini to move away from the ‘verismo’ or realism of his earlier operas, with the characters’ choices only making sense in this cruel mythological world.
Sondra Radvanovsky is in imperious form as Turandot and seems to float across the stage. Fearful of her own humanity, she is locked into a cycle of cruelty that only Calaf can break. Radvanovsky and SeokJong Baek are well-matched, bringing high-octane vocal power and supercharged emotion to the stage as Calaf fights for his life and Turandot gradually melts into her lover’s arms.
I don’t envy British tenor Paul Hopwood making his Covent Garden debut in his role as Turandot‘s dad Emperor Altoum. He has to descend from the giddy heights of the Covent Garden rafters, aka Heaven, on his golden Imperial throne. Hopwood is the operatic understudy par excellence so it is good to see him in a featured role in which he exuded authority and sympathy.
Light relief of sorts comes from a demonic trio of government ministers Ping, Pang, and Pong, played by Hansung Yoo, Aled Hall and Michael Gibson, all reprising their roles from last year’s revival. They are Chinese versions of the Zanni, trickster grotesques from the commedia dell’arte tradition, decked out in yellow, pink and orange tops as they leap around trying unsuccessfully to tempt Calaf away from his path with offers of women and jewellery.
Conductor Rafael Payare cut some pretty wild shapes in the first act whipping the drama out of the orchestra with its extended tuned percussion section adding orientalist interjections. The chorus was monumental, and if there were a few moments where the overall synchronisation was out of kilter, then this can be put down to first-night nerves. There were moments when the opera house seemed to shake with the vibration of the combined vocal and instrumental forces. It was that kind of night and you should go and see it if you can. It’s a lot of fun.
Turandot
19 March – 19 April 2025
Royal Opera House
Bow Street
London
WC2E 9DD
Turandot will be broadcast live in cinemas around the world on Tuesday, 1 April 2025, with encore performances from Sunday, 6 April
Check our 2025 season London opera previews
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