All-Asian Cast Set for TURANDOT at Grimeborn Opera Festival

An all East and South East Asian (ESEA) cast has been announced for Turandot at Grimeborn Opera Festival this August.  This marks the first time in the UK that a professional production of Puccini’s final opera, which is set in China and has its roots in Central and East Asian literature, has a full cast from the Asian diaspora.  A majority ESEA creative team spearheads this radical reimagining of Turandot, which tackles the opera’s orientalist tropes head-on, and examines the Far East’s contemporary role as a tech giant in the global landscape. 

The eponymous Turandot is played by Reiko Fukuda (Tokyo University of the Arts, Met Opera), opposite James Liu (BAME Fellow and Carmen, ENO; Candide, Blackheath Halls; Wake, Birmingham Opera) as Calaf.  They are joined by Michael CT Lam (Das Rheingold, Esplanade Concert Hall; La bohème, Opera Hong Kong; L’elisir d’amore, Music Viva) as Timur; Heming Li (2022 International Concert Competition, winner; La traviata, Manchester City Opera; Faust, Arcadian Opera) as Liú; Siyu Shen (Yang Ou Sang, National Theatre of China; Don Giovanni, Trinity Laban Opera Scenes; Rigoletto, Blackheath Halls) as Feng; Aina Miyagi Magnell (Sir John in Love, Opera Holland Park; Il prigioniero, London Symphony Orchestra; Sibelius’ Melodramas, BBC Radio 3 In Concert) as Xiang; Salome Siu (finalist, Elizabeth Schumann Lieder Duo Competition; SongEasel Young Artist) as Ming; Jacob Bettinelli (Sir John in Love, Opera Holland Park; Le nozze di Figaro, Orquesta Sinfónica de Michoacán; Don Giovanni, State Opera Varna) as Mandarin; and Benjie del Rosario (Pagliacci, Hampstead Garden Opera; Porgy & Bess and The Excursions of Mr Brouček, Grange Park Opera) as Emperor.  

Bettinelli and del Rosario make up the ensemble with Mandy Liu (soprano choral scholar, Old Royal Naval College Chapel Choir; Rigoletto, Trinity Laban Opera); Anna Vienna Ho (Macbeth, Opera in a Box; L’elisir d’amore, Musica Viva); Priscilla Fong (Young Artist, Buxton International Festival; Into The Woods and Falstaff, Royal Northern College of Music); and Andrew McClarty (student artist, Royal Northern College of Music).  Thomas Ang (repetiteur, Royal Ballet and Opera Holland Park) accompanies the cast on piano.  

The award-winning creative team consists of Olivier Award-nominated director and librettist Becca Marriott (La bohème and La traviata, King’s Head Theatre; Tosca, Grange Park Opera); Iskandar اسكندر Sharazuddin, an award-winning theatre-maker and movement director working across theatre and opera (Blackout Songs, Hampstead Theatre – 2023 Olivier Award nominee; Satyagraha and Così fan tutti, English National Opera; Suggestions of Love, King’s Head Theatre); Olivier Award-nominated musical director Panaretos Kyriatzidis (La bohème and Tosca, King’s Head Theatre; musical director, St Paul’s Opera); scenographer Ingrid Hu (Song From Far Away, HOME; In The Net, Jermyn Street Theatre; No Particular Order, Theatre 503); video designer Erin Guan (Pied Piper, Battersea Arts Centre; The Apology, Arcola Theatre; A Gig for Ghost, Soho Theatre); lighting designer Nao Nagai (Trouble in Mind, National Theatre; Scenes with Girls, Royal Court; Yellowman, Young Vic); and dramaturgy consultant Mingyu Lin (former Creative Associate, Headlong Theatre; Resident Artist, York Theatre Royal; A Play for Living in the Time of Extinction and Sovereign, York Theatre Royal). 

This reimagining explores the toxicity of online obsession in the face of human tragedy, as Calaf is lured into a virtual, addictive world by the imperious digital fantasy princess Turandot.  This new production, part of Grimeborn Opera Festival at the Arcola Theatre, challenges racist stereotypes that paint East Asian women as subservient, cruel or hyper-sexual, as well as the use of Yellowface in theatre and opera. 

The production is performed in Italian and is a co-production between British East and Southeast Asian (BESEA)-led Ellandar Productions and The Opera Makers for Grimeborn Festival 2023.

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