China Embraces Puccini, A Composer It Once Reviled

“Back in the 1960s and ’70s, when Italian opera was deemed a capitalist indulgence in China, no work was more despised than Giacomo Puccini’s ‘Turandot.'” But the Chinese are “singing a different tune these days. For the 60th anniversary of China’s communist revolution in October, a new production of ‘Turandot’ has been commissioned for the 100,000-seat Bird’s Nest stadium” — one of a raft of productions of “Turandot” and other Puccini operas in the country.