A beautiful, coldhearted Chinese princess has issued a decree for her suitors: whoever cannot solve her riddles to win her hand will be beheaded. When a mysterious man passes her test, will she finally open her heart to love? Puccini’s last opera Turandot, unfinished at his death, is musically his most adventurous work. Infused with Asian touches, it cannot deny its Italian heritage, culminating in the world-famous aria ‘Nessun dorma’. In 2017, the director duo Ricci/Forte were awarded the prestigious Italian Music Critics Award Franco Abbiati for best direction for their creative project.

One of opera’s greatest depictions of impossible love, Werther is based on Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Massenet thought long and hard about adapting Goethe’s story of a melancholy poet whose love for a married woman and general disaffection with the world lead to his suicide. Initially declined Opéra Comique, Werther had its premiere in Vienna in 1892. The portrayal of an artistic, brilliant and doomed young man rebelling against the establishment has resonated through the ages in music, literature, theatre and film. Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb’s new production is in safe and cinematic hands: Pier Giorgio Morandi, chief conductor Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, and the stage director, set and costume designer is Dante Ferretti. With Oscars to his credit, Ferretti has worked with some of the greatest names in cinema including Pasolini, Fellini, Zeffirelli, Scorsese to name just a few.