The Turandot Project

Celebrated film-director Zhang Yimou and world-renowned conductor Zubin Mehta joined forces for the creation of the extraordinary production of Puccini’s opera Turandot, beginning in Florence, Italy in 1997 and culminating the next year in spectacular outdoor performances in the Forbidden City of Beijing. This documentary film chronicles this unprecedented cross-cultural collaboration, the long and difficult process to bring Puccini’s opera back to the land that inspired it and the considerable culture shock both the Italian and Chinese artists suffered along the way.
Set in ancient China, the opera is the story of a vengeful princess, Turandot, who refuses to marry any man who can’t answer her three riddles. The suitors who fail are executed. When a stranger, Calaf, arrives in town, he accepts the challenge. He passes her test, but she feels reluctant to fill her part of the bargain. He offers her a way out: if she can guess his name by dawn, she can have him executed… (Mark Deming)