The Turandot Project

Documentarian Allan Miller's backstage look at the first production of Giacomo Puccini's 1926 Chinese-themed opera actually produced in China — in Beijing's Forbidden City, no less — is a generally impressive and visually spectacular piece of work, though the format allows for few surprises. The genesis of the production was a 1997 Italian collaboration between conductor Zubin Mehta and renowned Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, who had never before staged an opera and was, we subsequently learn, brought in solely for marquee value. Moving a fairly conventional stage production to the ancient Forbidden City proved far more problematic — and expensive ...