Cruel riddles

Princess Turandot poses three riddles to her suitors. Whoever can solve them will marry her. Those who fail must die. Hundreds try their luck, but only one succeeds - and in turn confronts Turandot with a riddle of life and death. Giacomo Puccini's opera is a work of emotional power. In his dark and exotic, shimmering fairy tale, the composer traces the tonal colours of Far Eastern melodies. Director Christof Loy adds other works by Puccini to the famous fragment and stages it as a psychogram of a young woman caught between coping with trauma and self-realisation.