The opera that gave us Nessun dorma

Much tribute has been paid in Mallorca to Giacomo Puccini, who died 100 years ago, and the Teatre Principal is adding to this with the staging of a new production of Puccini’s ‘Turandot’, the opera that was unfinished at the time of his death and was completed by fellow Italian composer Franco Alfano.

The original was set in China - the story of Prince Calaf who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot - Puccini’s inspiration having come from an 1801 play that had been adapted by German Johann Schiller from an earlier Italian work by Carlo Guzzi.

Considered to have been something of a flawed masterpiece, it is the opera that features ‘Nessun dorma’, made famous by Pavarotti for the 1990 World Cup. Alejandro Roy takes the role of Calaf, who sings this, and Catherine Foster is Princess Turandot.