Turandot presented on Sydney Harbour featuring Chinese elements

SYDNEY, Mar. 23 – Puccini's Turandot will be presented in Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour from March 24 to April 26, 2016. With Chinese director Chen Shi-Zheng's take on this Chinese fable, Turandot also provides subtitles in Simplified Chinese, which promotes the spectacular outdoor opera event to Chinese visitors and communities in Australia.

When the heroic top notes of ‘Nessun dorma’ ring out, your soul stirs. It's impossible to resist — the climax of an exotic adventure, captured perfectly in music. A story of a death-marked love told with salt in the air, light on the sails and the city skyline. It's the best of Sydney in a single evening: singing, sunsets, Chinese pagoda and dragon, in perfect harmony.

Taken in by a Chinese opera troupe, Chen Shi-Zheng grew up surrounded by music, but witnessed great suffering. It's a duality he finds utterly compelling, and a juxtaposition that ties in perfectly with the ice-hearted, impossibly beautiful princess at the heart of Puccini's Turandot.

As a director, his work forms a bridge between Chinese and Western artistic approaches, drawing on the Hollywood film tradition, theatrical acrobatics and traditional Chinese opera to create works that thrill visually and cut to the heart.