Big Theater Premieres. Giacomo Puccini's Opera "Turandot" (for the 250th Anniversary of the Theater's Founding)

Seven casts of performers and principal roles prepared the most vocally demanding, virtuosic opera parts. Maestro Valery Gergiev emphasized: "This production features very promising artists. We're now mainly relying on young singers, giving them opportunities ahead of time at the expense of our renowned senior colleagues. Our young talents have made an incredible leap forward over the past 18 months of work on Puccini's 'Turandot.' Nurturing talent is essential—that's my stance," Maestro Valery Gergiev stressed.

The Bolshoi Theater's ensemble worked on "Turandot" for a year and a half. They had planned to present the result in September but decided to perfect the production. The complex rehearsal process was meant to synchronize all departments and over a hundred artists.

As a result, the musical score of Giacomo Puccini's grand-scale "Turandot"—with its massive cast—was flawless at the premiere. The symphony orchestra under Valery Gergiev's baton was colorful and vibrant. As is well known, the maestro is a brilliant interpreter of 20th-century musical classics. Two massive choirs, masterfully prepared alongside the children's choir by the Bolshoi's chief chorus master Valery Borisov, sounded magnificent. The choirs' emotional power was enhanced by the brilliantly executed, colorful sets: depicting the Great Wall of China in Acts 1 and 3, and a sports arena in Act 2. For context, the opera is set in Beijing, including the Imperial Palace and its surroundings, in unspecified "fairy-tale times," allowing set designer and production artist Vyacheslav Okunev ample room to fantasize.

Director Alexei Franchetti, staging Puccini's "Turandot," has worked with Valery Gergiev before but this is his first time at the Bolshoi. Speaking about his Turandot, Franchetti is uncompromising: she is cold and cruel, yet fairy-tale-like, just as in Carlo Gozzi's play. The production itself turned out modernist: audiences saw multiple projections using modern technology, visual effects, and a short animated film that serves somewhat as a libretto.

The thing is, "Turandot" is the great Italian composer's last unfinished opera. Giacomo Puccini died on November 28, 1924, having completed the death scene of Liù and the funeral chorus—the end of Scene 1 in Act 3. As the plot from Carlo Gozzi goes, Prince Calaf ultimately wins Turandot's love afterward. But Puccini clearly struggled with that joyful ending. Tragic worldview and a tragic break—that was the Italian master's signature style.

At the 1926 premiere in La Scala, conductor Arturo Toscanini turned to the audience and said: "Here, death interrupted work on the opera that the maestro did not live to complete..."

Even today, some directors prefer to stop right at that point in the score. Moreover, Liù's death—one of the opera's main characters—symbolizes the death of the opera genre itself for many opera fans. Already in Puccini's time, 20th-century composers began creating recitative-based musical dramas where singers' voices, the beauty of their timbres, and cantabile lines became secondary. Yet there's another approach to "Turandot." Franco Alfano, composer of many original works, completed this finale based on Puccini's sketches. He entered music history precisely as the creator of this "foreign" ending, featuring the upbeat final scene and triumphant major-key hit "Nessun dorma."

The Bolshoi's production team chose this finale for Puccini's opera. Here, in the end, the theater's full artistic resources converged so that the magnificent Turandot could deliver the final word: "love."

That same word will be central to the Bolshoi's next premiere—Verdi's masterpiece "Otello," scheduled for late March.