The 60 metre-long dragon will encircle a 16-metre high pagoda for next year’s production of Turandot.

Opera Australia have revealed a sneak peek at the ambitious and visually striking set for next year’s Handa Opera on the Harbour. For 2016’s new production of Turandot, a 60 metre-long dragon will encircle the stage. However, far from being an inert piece of set, this colossal beast will be a dynamic centrepiece, morphing into a structure reminiscent of the Great Wall of China, before winding its way across the vast floating stage towards a 16 metre-high iridescent pagoda, in what Opera Australia has promised to be “a visually stunning feat of engineering and design.”

Designed by Dan Potra, this early glimpse of next year’s production suggests a more traditional, albeit similarly spectacular, approach in contrast to 2015’s Aida, which sought to combine the iconography of Egypt with the gaudy grandiloquence and opulence of the Palace of Versaille.

Approximately 150 stage technicians, artists and craftspeople are required to build the enormous set, which is built on-land at White Bay before being craned into position at Fleet Steps, across the harbour from the Sydney Opera House. It is not yet known if any provisions have been made to avoid an unusual issue which affected the set of this year’s Opera on the Harbour: an invasion of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos who repeatedly tore chunks out of the giant bust of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, which was the centre piece of 2015’s set.

Opera Australia’s Handa Opera on the Harbour presents Turndot, March 24 – April 24 2016.