“Atlanta Opera’s ‘Turandot’ thrills in spectacular production”

“This superb must-see production spotlights glorious singing, electrifying conducting and eye-popping stage and costume designs.”

“The production’s Bauhaus geometric abstractions and Mondrian aesthetics by scenic designer Erhard Rom help to connect a 12th-century tale to a violent modern era.”

-Paul Hyde, ARTSATL

“Rom’s modernly abstract Piet Mondrian-inspired set emphasizes visual asymmetry, including the placement and movement of staircases and platforms. The “chess” figures move less as individuals than as pieces within a larger design. The asymmetry of that system, noted even within the production’s own logic, reinforces the sense that authority here is constructed rather than natural.”

“Marking the centenary of Turandot with a production that so deliberately unsettles its conventions is a calculated choice. By relocating a central aria and stripping the ending to its Puccini-writ bones, The Atlanta Opera foregrounds the opera’s unresolved tensions rather than smoothing them over.”

-Mark Gresham, EarRelevant

“TAO’s edition then dispenses with almost all of the Alfano ending, preserving only a few measures of the brief second scene of Act three… set designer Erhard Rom, first conceived of this fix for “Turandot” during college…. Surely Turandot’s peroration about generational trauma makes more sense if she has been jolted into it by the shock of seeing Liù’s suicide, which she herself has caused?”

“…in conjunction with an impressive new staging, these changes worked well enough to make me want to see “Turandot” performed this way in the future.”

“In all three acts Rom employed sets that called on the primary-colored rectilinear aesthetic of Piet Mondrian’s work of the 1920s and 1930s. Among the goals expressed by Rom and the rest of the production team was avoiding Chinese stereotypes, and Mondrian is a long way from Orientalist kitsch. Mondrian and other Bauhaus visuals fit together like puzzle pieces.”

“A large full moon at the back of the stage appeared white most of the time, though bloody or sickly green when it ought.”

“TAO’s production edit…. improves mightily on the deeply unbelievable love duet we have been so accustomed to seeing tacked onto Liù’s funeral cortege, and it raises the ratio of Puccini to not-Puccini in the opera by pretty close to 100 percent. I do not need to see “Turandot” again for some time. But when the time comes, the Rom edit would be the best way to take in this deeply problematic work.”

-Benjamin Torbert, Operawire

“This new version, directed by Tomer Zvulun and designed by Erhard Rom (scenery) and Ana Kuzmanic (costumes), takes place in a dystopian and somewhat abstract society, with a faceless population and with senseless violence”

“Rom’s set, which combines Mondrain’s minimalist aesthetic and M.C. Escher’s Relativity along with monochromatic and bold lighting by Robert Wierzel, gave Peking an updated feel”

“Will this new and improved version of Turandot become standard…Perhaps if Puccini had been afforded additional time to finish the opera, he would have arrived at the same conclusions as Zvulun and Rom”

-Stephanie Adrian, Opera Magazine