It was 1987 in New York, I had been in the city for six years, and I was an artist who had nothing to do. So when we saw there were opportunities to work as extras in a production of Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot by Franco Zeffirelli and James Levine at the Metropolitan Opera, both my brother Ai Dan and I went for the audition – and were accepted.
At the time, performing in the opera didn’t evoke any strong feelings in me, even though we were performing with famous opera singers like Éva Marton and Plácido Domingo. All I wanted then was to receive my fees after rehearsals and go to Gray’s Papaya on Broadway to feast on hot dogs.
Thirty-five years later, I was invited by Teatro dell’Opera di Roma to direct a new production of Turandot. I accepted it mainly because of my participation in that performance 35 years before. This time I worked as the director, set and costume designer and video artist.
It took me a long time to prepare for this opera – I was very unfamiliar with the field, and had to work on my understanding of music, characters and plot development. The picture above, showing Francesca Dotto as Liù and Antonio Di Matteo as Timur, was taken on 22 March this year from that production at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome.
I was pleased with the result. In the videos projected at the back of the stage, I included the many issues that human beings have faced in recent years and my interpretation of them, including wars, refugee crises, the Covid pandemic, Hong Kong’s cry for freedom, the Ukraine war, possibilities of larger disasters in the future, and general feelings of uncertainty.
Happily – especially given I was much more invested this time around – my version of Turandot was very well received.
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Ai Weiwei is a leading contemporary artist, activist and advocate of political reform in China
