BMW Master Hall performance of Turandot. Photo: Courtesy of Li Zhongsheng from Guangzhou Opera House

 

Turandot, a large-scale opera sponsored by BMW's top art project BMW Master Hall, concluded its three-night run at the Guangzhou Opera House late June in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. The three performances, featuring an international lineup with a world-class art team and world-famous actors like American soprano Lise Lindstorm, Russian tenor Vladimir Galouzine, and especially the new BMW Master Hall honorary artistic advisor and renowned conductor Daniel Oren, received lavish praise from audience members.

The opera was selected as a second collaboration between BMW Master Hall and Oren, who has visited China several times before. As one of the missions of the art project, BMW Master Hall allows more people to appreciate operas with immortal singing and storytelling like Turandot.

Oren is well known to Guangzhou audiences for his previous two works in the city, Tosca and the first BMW Master Hall performance, Madame Butterfly.

Oren showed off his abilities and masterful aesthetic sense by accentuating the love and hate hidden in the music. He has a special liking and passion for Puccini's work, and has a unique understanding of Puccini's opera.

Turandot was nearly completed when Puccini died, and his student Franco Alfano used the composer's sketches to finish the work. The story, set in China, involves Prince Calàf who falls in love with the cold princess Turandot.

To obtain permission to marry her, a suitor has to solve three riddles; any false answer results in death. Calàf passes the test, but Turandot still hesitates to marry him. He offers her a way out: he agrees to die should she be able to guess his real name. Turandot had proved to be one of Puccini's grandest works, with a score that contains his exquisitely beautiful music such as the aria "Nessun Dorma."

BMW Master Hall, launched by the famous automobile brand BMW last year, is the company's top cultural and art sponsorship project.

The project covers four realms of art: opera, jazz, dance and contemporary art.

BMW Master Hall has already staged performances such as the opera Madame Butterfly, and the original, large-scale original ballet The Peacock.

The project will also bring world-class shows to Chinese art lovers like the opera La Dame aux Camélias, the Jazz Festival Shanghai 2013, and the Zubin Mehta New Year's concert. In the future, BMW Master Hall will cooperate with more world-class art masters, leading greater numbers of Chinese audience members into the world's top echelon of art, and allowing them to enjoy the pleasure and spiritual enlightenment of art.

At the same time, the BMW Master Hall Art Salon, the new part of the project, will further push forward the dialogue between Chinese and Western artistic masters, promoting regional culture and art exchanges and development.