Opéra de Montréal presents co-produced production of Puccini’s Turandot

The Opéra de Montréal, in co-production with the Washington National Opera and Dallas Opera, has presented a large-scale production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Turandot” at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. The production features over 150 artists, including Maida Hundeling as Turandot and Andrea Shin as Calaf.

Directed by Francesca Zambello, this version departs from the traditional setting of imperial China. Instead, the production utilizes an industrial, dystopian aesthetic with scaffolding and metallic structures to reimagine Turandot as an authoritarian ruler within a totalitarian state. This creative choice shifts the character's violence from a folkloric context to a political one, replacing traditional elements with depictions of Central Asian migrants and early twentieth-century bureaucratic functionaries.