Andrei Serban’s 1984 production of Puccini’s final opera was a well-flogged warhorse by the turn of the millennium, hugely assisted by the global 1990s popularity of the aria Nessun Dorma. Revived only two years ago it returns again, part of a Puccini-rich season marking the centenary of the composer’s death (the event which left Turandot unfinished). But thankfully this staging is still far from showing its age.
Instead Jack Furness’s meticulous staging, tightly choreographed by Kate Flatt, feels newly minted. When the blood red drapes at the front of the stage are ripped down in the opening bars, the oppressive ceiling-to-floor set looms over everything, severed head masks looking down. The action takes place amid shadowy watchers, seemingly indifferent to the heartlessness that pervades Turandot almost up to its sudden happily-ever-after end, which used the cut version of Franco Alfano’s 1926 completion.
