Peking Opera 'Turandot' makes its Rome debut

The Peking opera version of Turandot, jointly launched by the China National Peking Opera Company and the Italian Emilia-Romagna Theater Foundation, made its Rome debut Tuesday night.

The 2019 "Happy Chinese Spring Festival" and China Tourism Exhibition were also held in the same venue. Chinese ambassador to Italy Li Ruiyu watched the performance and exhibition. Former Italian Deputy Prime Minister and the Italian Coordinator of China-Italy Cultural Cooperation Mechanism Francesco Rutelli attended the event.

This new "Turandot" is presented in the form of an experimental Peking opera, incorporating modern dance designs and many Italian elements, according to the China National Peking Opera Company.

The show was accompanied not only with Chinese traditional instruments like Jinghu and Yueqin, but also some Western instruments such as double bass and electric guitar by Italian players, giving the audience a unique listening experience. Many audiences were amazed at the music in the play and deeply impressed by the exquisite traditional costumes of Peking opera.

The famous Italian opera of Turandot is based on a story that happened in China. According to Xu Mengke, the Chinese co-director and the actor for Calaf, "telling it in a Chinese perspective can promote the exchange and understanding between the two peoples in terms of artistic expression and way of thinking. And it is also a case of Chinese culture 'going out'."

"I believe the audience will have a better understanding of Chinese culture and Peking opera," he added.

"Our Turandot is a fable in which the Chinese and Italian traditional elements can coexist. Our Chinese colleagues gave the radiance, liveliness and a sense of poetry fiction that are typical of Peking opera, while the Italian troupe made a more conceptual intervention, trying to put in this beautiful story a more painful and black vein connected to the idea that 'love can not be founded by such bloody acts as those Princess Turandot did'," Marco Plini, the Italian co-director of this new show, told Xinhua.

"It was really a work of cooperation to build mutual trust and esteem between me and the Chinese troupe. We worked with great passion and rigor, and there was a very good result from both the artistic point of view and the human point of view," he stressed.

There will be another five shows at the Argentine Theater in Rome from Feb 6 to 10, which is also the last stop of the troupe's Italian tour. The troupe has toured five cities including Bolzano, Prato, Modena, Ferrara and Casa Maggio since Jan. 10th and have finished 15 performances.