Coming Home

For once, Turandot was too Chinese. When organizers approached authorities in Beijing about staging the Puccini opera in the Forbidden City--long a dream of many conductors--officials initially balked. They were not deterred by the opera itself or even, in principle, by the risk of performing it inside one of the country's most valuable landmarks. Instead authorities worried that the director--mainland filmmaker Zhang Yimou, taking his first stab at the genre--did not have the experience to handle such a high-profile project. Only after several months did officials at the Ministry of Culture grant permission for a week of performances.Their decision has ensured that this $15 million production of Turandot will be the most Chinese ever. Though Puccini had never visited the Middle Kingdom--he based his opera about a cruel princess on an Italian fairy tale--the story is meant to unfold in the Forbidden City. Its staging there has thus been hailed with intercontinental gongs and whistles. Organizers boast of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. (They also promise that laserdisc, CD and vcd recordings will be released by Oct. 15.) The eight performances, from Sept. 5 to 13, have nearly sold out. With tickets going for as much as $1,750, the production is almost guaranteed to turn a profit. The show has, in fact, become more event than art: audience members are in large part paying to see a fantasy made real.The production is stubbornly untraditional. Last year Zhang, the Oscar-nominated director of Raise the Red Lantern and Keep Cool, freely conceded his qualms at tackling opera--a genre he knew only in the bastardizations of Cultural Revolution agitprop. But the choice turned out to be inspired. Rather than fumbling to learn unfamiliar European conventions, he introduced elements of Peking Opera to his version of Turandot, which debuted at Florence's Teatro Communale last spring with Zubin Mehta conducting (as he will in Beijing). The resulting melange played to Zhang's strengths as a filmmaker. The two cultures [Italian and Chinese] are just like two separate mountains, he told journalists last July. My work is like the tunnel through which I can travel freely between the two. Critics and performers alike enthused about the innovations--more symbolic, animated movement; bright and elaborate costumes; Chinese ballet dancers.Puccini, with his flimsy knowledge of China, took even greater liberties. Turandot, his final opera, was actually inspired by Turandotte, written by the Venetian author Carlo Gozzi in 1762. The story reads like an archetypal European myth: a disguised prince seeks the hand of the haughty Princess Turandot, who kills all suitors who cannot answer her three riddles; though he succeeds, he promises to sacrifice himself if she can learn his name, and wins her for good only after a kiss. Some Chinese critics have complained that the princess bears none of the grace and humility of a true Chinese lady. Most other observers have long accepted that Puccini's work takes place in that hazy, mythic Orient that has for centuries existed only in the mind of the West.Nevertheless, everyone associated with Zhang's idiosyncratic production is acting as if Turandot is coming home. The extravaganza has been wrought by promoter Michael Ecker's Opera on Original Site (OOS), a Vienna-based organization whose first project brought Verdi's Aida to the pyramids at Luxor in 1987. The backdrop this time is similarly opulent: eight open-air performances will take place in Taimiao, the ancestral temple just outside the ancient city's Imperial Palace, where the last emperor, Pu Yi, was wed in 1924 (and where the New Age musician Yanni performed in 1997). More than 1,000 people are involved in the show, including local Chinese singers and extras; 100 dancers will replace the 12 who performed in Florence. Ming-dynasty drums will herald the opening of each show, and hand-painted panels covered in gold-leaf and red will take the place of a stage curtain.Critics fear that all this may prove too much for the site to bear. Some worry that the production could spark a fire at the 15th century temple, whose pillars are made of eaglewood and whose floor is paved with shiny, gold-colored bricks. Cultural relics should not be used as props, preservationist Xie Chengsheng complained in the Beijing Youth Daily last month. Organizers insist they are taking extensive precautions with the structure, covering even stone railings with fire-retardant foam and flooring over the courtyard where the performance will take place. The State Cultural Relics Administration, the institution responsible for protecting China's ancient monuments, denies having granted permission for the Turandot shows. But observers think authorities are only establishing an alibi in case something goes wrong. Having such performances is nothing new, says an official of the Working People's Cultural Palace, the body directly in charge of the temple. We had no problems with Yanni.More worrisome may be the damage to pocketbooks. Ecker and OOS gulped when Zhang presented the bill for a Beijing Turandot--three times that of the Florence production. Most of the money will go toward more expansive sets, including two moving pavilions mounted on rails. The director also raised costs with his demands for realism. His insistence that costumes be remade in Ming rather than Tang dynasty style, in keeping with the Forbidden City's vintage, added $330,000 to the tab. (Much of the embroidery is being done by hand in the town of Changbincun, where the imperial family's clothes were made 500 years ago.)That attention to accuracy has pushed ticket prices well out of the reach of most Chinese, and even many foreigners. By early August, the cheapest seats still available were going for $350; some package deals that include airfare, hotel and a gala dinner at the opera site can run as high as $45,000. Locals have bought out two lower-priced performances, made possible only after the cast agreed to waive salaries for the shows.The bloated numbers make clear that the production's target audience is not necessarily Chinese. Sooner or later everyone will be dependent on the economy of China, says Ecker. A lot of international companies are using this project to invite people to the Forbidden City for 'hospitality.' Business guests are expected to comprise roughly half of the 4,200-member audience each night; more than 200 companies (including Time's parent) have anted up between $15,000 and $1 million each for tickets, dinner with the cast and advertising recognition. Individuals were offered single tickets only in Hong Kong and China. Everyone else had to sign up for package deals via authorized travel agencies in 18 countries, designed to ensure that visitors keep their wallets open. The travel packages encourage people to spend more time, more dollars, says Betsy Illium, director of sales and marketing at New York's Dailey-Thorp Travel. It really benefits both the government and the people.The 1987 OOS production of Aida brought 30,000 tourists to an Egypt hit badly by hijackings of a cruise ship and an airliner two years earlier. Chinese officials hope to rake in $100 million in tourism revenue because of Turandot--and they relish the opportunity to showcase Beijing in its continuing bid to host a Summer Olympics. If Zhang and Ecker's hybrid produces anything like that anticipated windfall, it will have proven more than Chinese enough.Reported by Brooke Richie/London and Mia Turner/Beijing