Puccini’s final opera, Turandot, returns to the Hungarian State Opera between 4 and 12 October 2025, in the grand and highly successful production staged last year by Dóra Barta, who has recently been inducted into the Company of Immortals. The story of the cold-hearted Chinese princess and her suitor’s love, burdened with power struggles, comes to life with a double cast, featuring Csilla Boross and Szilvia Rálik, Giorgi Sturua and Boldizsár László, Polina Pasztircsák and Gabriella Létay Kiss, as well as Dénes Gulyás in the leading roles, under the baton of Martin Rajna.
Can love free the cold-hearted princess from the cruel and vengeful role assigned to her, in which she sends her suitors to death if they fail to answer her three riddles? Is it love, ambition, or something else that drives the mysterious prince who dares to face the trial after so many others have failed? And in the shadow of the rulers’ power games, what is the worth of a slave girl’s self-sacrifice for love? These are questions to which Puccini’s final, unfinished opera gives no clear or comforting answer. Some believe that the composer deliberately left the work incomplete because he could not find a dramatically convincing conclusion to the story. In Dóra Barta’s staging, which blends tradition with modernity, the emphasis also falls on doubt and the political calculations in the background, an approach well complemented by Luciano Berio’s 2002 completion, composed based on Puccini’s notes.
In the Opera House’s autumn performances, the title role of Turandot will mark the debut of Csilla Boross, whose internationally acclaimed and extensive Puccini repertoire will be enriched with yet another iconic heroine. Her partner, in the role of Calàf, will be Giorgi Sturua. The young talent of the Georgian National Opera and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein began his career as a Bolshoi scholarship holder in Moscow and has already made a name for himself in both Italian and Slavic repertoire with performances at the opera houses of St. Petersburg, Düsseldorf, Florence, Nice, Wrocław, and Kraków. In the alternating cast, Szilvia Rálik (Turandot) and Boldizsár László (Calàf) will reprise their highly successful performances from last year. Liù, the slave girl, will be portrayed by Polina Pasztircsák and Gabriella Létay Kiss, while the unusually prominent role of Emperor Altoum will be performed by the Kossuth Prize-winning, Artist of Merit Dénes Gulyás, alongside András Palerdi (Timur), debuting Azat Malik (Ping), Tibor Szappanos (Pang), opera studio member Botond Pál (Pong), and András Kiss (Mandarin).
The spectacular production will feature the OPERA's ensembles: an 86-member orchestra, a 90-member chorus (chorus director: Gábor Csiki), and a 40-member children’s chorus (chorus director: Nikolett Hajzer) conducted by the OPERA’s principal conductor, Martin Rajna, who will also be conducting Puccini's opera for the very first time.
In the 2025 season, Turandot is presented at the Hungarian State Opera a total of seven times, following the public dress rehearsal on 3 October 3, on 4, 5 (matinee), 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12 (matinee) October.
Photos by Péter Rákossy / Alexandra H'Art
