100 years after Puccini's death. Opera... Young La Bohème. "The Return of Turandot."

[Anchor]
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.

At the end of this year, it's simply Puccini's opera.

From young Laboem to the return of Turandot, who succeeded in 2003,
Reporter Lee Kwang-yeon introduces
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[Reporter]
The Seoul Metropolitan Opera will stage La Bohème for the first time in 39 years.

It is a work about Puccini's autobiographical experience of living as a poor artist when he was young and set on Christmas Eve in the Latin district of Paris in the 19th century.

[Park Hye-jin / Head of the Seoul Opera Company: Bohemians and young people meet and become more mature with love, and it contains the stories of those artists.]


MZ vocalists will be the mainstay on this stage, which embodies books and memories.

In particular, sopranos recognized in the world's top three competitions played the main character, Mimi.

[Hwang Sumi / Opera [La Bohm] Mimi: I've done it many times, so I think I need a lot of different ideas to fill in because the casting is different.]

[Seo Sun-young / Opera [La Bohème] Mimi: Young, I feel like I'm getting a lot of new energy, so I'm so excited every time I come to practice, and it's time to recharge my new energy..]

Early next month, the National Opera will perform Puccini's western drama, "The Lady of the West," for the first time in three years.

The stage, consisting of top vocalists, is also available through an online streaming service dedicated to opera for the first time in Korea.

The return of Puccini's posthumous work, Turandot, which was watched by 110,000 people for four days 21 years ago directed by Zhang Yimou.

[Davide Livermore / Directed by 2024 Again Turandot: Happy to be back in Seoul with Puccini's masterpiece. I love Korea's passion for opera and culture.]

It cost 20 billion won to produce a different version of the Turandot from the stage that moved to Seoul from mainland Italy last month.

Placido Domingo, one of the world's top three tenors, meets a Korean audience for the first time as a conductor to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Puccini's death.

I'm Lee Kwang Yeon of YTN.



Filmmaker: Lee Youngjae
Video editing: Kim Hee-jung
Screen courtesy: National Opera, Again2024Turandot