Legendary Italian Opera Turandot to Premiere at the Tbilisi Opera Theater

Soon, Italian opera enthusiasts will be able to enjoy a well-known opera by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini at the Tbilisi Opera Theater.

On March 25 at 7 pm, on the stage of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theater, Turandot will premier; the last opera by the renowned Italian composer.

Alfonso Signorini, among the most popular television personalities in Italian media, is a writer, editor and a famous TV host. In December 2017, he made his debut in opera as a director of Turandot at the Torre del Lago Puccini Festival. The same year, the recording of the opera was broadcast on Italian television Canale 5 and released as a DVD.

“It was a dream locked in a box,” Signorini said before the premiere. “It will be not Signorini’s, but Puccini’s Turandot. It will not be an avant-garde opera – I am not attracted to avant-garde. I have no need to become a big star. The opera will be presented in a traditional way, with fairy tale and Disney-like decorations, full of light and shadows, just as in life.”

The 2017 Puccini Festival of Torre del Lago (Italy) was opened with this very opera. The performance stands out for its magnificent stage set and costume design, transporting the audience into a fairytale by Carlo Gozzi, in the Chinese Imperial Palace, where the love story of Princess Turandot and Prince Calaf evolves.

Giacomo Puccini, an Italian opera composer also known as “the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi," worked on the opera until the end of his life in 1924, yet, unfortunately, he did not manage to finish it and it was completed by his friend Franco Alfano.

Turandot had its world-premiere on April 25, 1926, at La Scala, Milan. Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini stopped the opera abruptly by announcing that this was the end of the performance, since while working on this part, the great maestro passed away. Turandot has since toured the world and has been staged at various great theaers.

Other members of the team involved in the famous opera that will be premiered in Tbilisi include scenographer Carla Tolomeo, who has had more than 90 personal exhibitions in Vienna, Geneva, Zurich, New York, London, and Paris and in significant art centers in Italy such as Palazzo Reale in Milan (1993) and Casa del Mantegna in Mantua (1995).

“The opera has been staged by Alfonso Signorini, the king of Italian media. He has gathered an amazing team whose performance was viewed by 15 million people,” said Badri Maisuradze, Artistic Director and Head of the Tbilisi State Opera Theater. “It has mentioned everywhere that Turandot was co-produced by the Tore Del Lago Puccini Festival and Tbilisi Zakaria Paliashvili Opera and Ballet Theater. The DVD with the performance recording was attached to 7,000.000 magazines and all them were sold. It is extremely important that Georgia takes part in the staging of this opera and, in summer, the Tbilisi Opera will participate in Puccini’s Festival in Italy and present this opera to an international audience. Apart from Turandot, our theater will perform three more operas in Italy. It has been quite a long time since Turandot was staged in Tbilisi, around 90 years, and the Tbilisi Opera has not been to Italy since 1989. After Torre Del Lago, we will head to the Tagliacozzo Festival where our orchestra and choir will participate. For the premiere of Turandot, we have invited three opera singers from Italy who will perform the complicated part of Ping, Pang and Pong. They will sing in three performances and then Georgians will substitute them. Our whole team committed themselves and worked hard on this opera. Georgian artists from abroad are also invited to perform in Turandot. Premieres of Turandot will be conducted by the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theater Conductor, Zaza Azmaiparashvili, and President and Conductor of the Puccini Festival, Alberto Veronesi.”

The opera is the co-production of the Torre del Lago Puccini Festival and Tbilisi Opera Theater. Alfonso Signorini is the director of Turandot, Carla Tolomeo - scenographer, Fausto Puglisi and Leila Fteita - costume designers. Turandot will be premiered at the Tbilisi Opera Theaer on Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi, on the following dates: March 27, 30; April 1, 14, 15. The opera will be performed both by Tbilisi Opera soloists and invited Georgian and foreign artists and conductors.

Lika Chigladze