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Turandot, English National Opera, London Coliseum | reviews, news & interviews

Turandot, English National Opera, London Coliseum

Turandot, English National Opera, London Coliseum

Mamma Mia meets Kill Bill2 in a sharply inventive new production

The Chinese restaurant Turandot: Ping, Pang and Pong stealing smokes on the fire escape generate a visual firestormPhotographs © Catherine Ashmore/ ENO

It’s a let-down when a new production of an opera that spends two acts feeling dazzlingly invigorating and clever collapses in a careless mess in the third. My guess is that a key scene for the concept of English National Opera’s Turandot is when Ping, Pang and Pong - three very grand court officials - turn out to be Chinese cooks sneaking smokes up the fire escape at the Emperor Palace restaurant. It's a sharp idea, generating a sensationally visual production, but that fire escape's got to lead somewhere, and in the end it's nowhere.

It’s a let-down when a new production of an opera that spends two acts feeling dazzlingly invigorating and clever collapses in a careless mess in the third. My guess is that a key scene for the concept of English National Opera’s Turandot is when Ping, Pang and Pong - three very grand court officials - turn out to be Chinese cooks sneaking smokes up the fire escape at the Emperor Palace restaurant. It's a sharp idea, generating a sensationally visual production, but that fire escape's got to lead somewhere, and in the end it's nowhere.

A surreal and satirical approach suits the music's bipolar swings from romanticism to modernism

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Comments

Great review! I thought the Guardian was COMPLETELY WRONG to pan it. The sort of lazy, introverted review that is no help to the average opera-goer at all. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/09/turandot-opera-review-andrew...

I saw Amanda Echalaz in Ballo at Opera Holland Park this summer and she was incredible - blew everyone else away. Looking forward to this.

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