Piccolo Teatro Strehler / at 04:00 PM

The Ice Princess
Based on Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot

Opera reduction by Enrico Minaglia

Featuring 130 Primary School Students
Scuola Primaria Ariberto (Istituto Compresivo Cavalieri) - Milano
Scuola Primaria Montessori (Istituto Comprensivo Montessori) - Bollate

Students Orchestra from the Conservatories of Torino and Milano
Roxana Díaz Vanden-Bosch, soprano, Turandot
Olha Smokolina, soprano, Liù
Alfonso Zambuto, tenor, Calaf
Chiara Casalbuoni, narrator
Giuseppe La Malfa, conductor
Anastasiya Byshlyaha, choirmaster

Actors from the Venti Lucenti collective
Manu Lalli director, stage directions and costumes
Scenes Daniele Leone
Light designer Fabio Rossi
Assistant to light designer Anna Merlo

The story we’re about to tell you is an old one, yet this evening it comes back to life, as real as it ever was. It is the tale of a beautiful princess, Turandot – a frightened young woman who hid behind her own words. Indeed, she’d turned those words into a fortress, a prison. Turandot had no more joy in life, and was now known as the Ice Princess. She has become cruel and mysterious. Her life is devoid of hope, passion and love. She is hard, sparkling and cold – like ice. Many princes have tried to solve her riddle, yet till now none of them have grasped the true meaning of her words. They were punished for their longing for glory and thirst for conquest, and would never win Turandot’s cold heart – their illusions turned out to be a trap, and they wound up losing their heads. There seemed to be no man that could melt the ice, until...