China's ambassador to Italy Li Junhua and his wife attended the concert version of the opera Turandot and an exhibition of costumes from the opera in Rome on March 12.

The China-Italy Year of Culture and Tourism is about to restart in 2022. As a member unit of the Sino-Italian cultural cooperation mechanism, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia arranged the performance as part of its spring season.

Previously at the opening ceremony of the China-Italy Year of Culture and Tourism in January 2020, the orchestra teamed with Chinese artists for a successful concert.

The concert version of Turandot features the famous conductor Antonio Pappano, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and tenor Jonas Kaufmann. 2,300 seats were sold out in advance and the theatre was packed at showtime.

The orchestra’s foundation has cooperated with the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Italy and Textile Museum of Prato to hold the exhibition Turandot and the Fantastic East of Puccini at Parco della Musica Auditorium in Rome. The show ran from March 10 to 27.

The exhibition displayed two costumes from the opera’s world premiere at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on April 25, 1926 and a set from the Peking Opera version of Turandot co-created by China’s National Peking Opera Company and the Emilia Romagna Teatro Foundation in 2018. It also showed a series of pictures related to the history of Turandot performances.