‘Turandot’ Given a Glittering Performance in Forbidden City

With all the opulence that $15 million can buy, including glittering embroidered-silk period costumes and a cast of more than 1,000, “ ‘Turandot’ at the Forbidden City” beguiles the eye tonight on KCET-TV’s “Great Performances.”

The live performance was videotaped at the Ming Dynasty palace--the opera’s fictional site--in Beijing in 1998. The production had been created a year earlier in far less lavish form for the Teatro Comunale in Florence, Italy, and then in a feat of diplomatic and cross-cultural derring-do, translated to China to create a Grand Opera Event.

The casting of Puccini’s beloved final work is uniformly strong, with Giovanna Casolla in the title role, Sergej Larin as Calaf and Barbara Frittoli as Liu. That strength extends to all the oft-scanted secondary roles.

Zubin Mehta conducts the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino orchestra and chorus with broad and lyric authority.

The stage direction of Oscar-nominated Zhang Yimou (“Ju Dou,” “Raise the Red Lantern”) is fluid and often brilliant. His use of a young Chinese Opera acrobatic swordswoman as the executioner is fascinating and terrifying.

Remember, though, that this was recorded outdoors, so the voices, though amplified, sometimes sound oddly hollow.

Hugo Kach’s direction for television reflects occasional indecision about whether this is a filmed opera or a travelogue. Sudden transitions to the city, countryside or other parts of the palace switch night to day. Some trick photography--encasing Turandot in a block of ice (the “icy princess,” get it?)--are simply idiotic.

His camera also wanders over the chorus when Turandot first sees Calaf, missing a critical psychological moment that can prepare for her transformation.

The opera is preceded by a valuable hourlong documentary on the process of producing the opera in Beijing, with excerpts from the earlier Florence production and a sampling of the other two casts of principals not seen in the broadcast.

* “The Making of ‘Turandot’ at the Forbidden City,” 8 p.m., “ ‘Turandot’ at the Forbidden City,” 9 p.m., tonight, KCET-TV Channel 28.