Designer Dan Potra’s $12 million design for Opera Australia’s annual harbour production begins construction.

Late last year, Opera Australia unveiled Dan Potra’s designs for 2016’s Handa Opera on the Harbour production of Puccini’s Turandot, featuring a towering pagoda and a fire-breathing, shape-shifting dragon. Now the talented technicians of Opera Australia must take this stunning vision from the page to the stage and build a dragon longer than an Olympic swimming pool.

A computer rendering of the Turandot stage design

And if that wasn’t challenging enough, the dragon will also need to come alive with fire and smoke from the nostrils during the performance. After last year’s cockatoo-infestation problem on the head of Nefertiti during performances of Aida, the set makers are using a harder form of material to ensure the dragon’s durability against the elements and any overly friendly fauna.

Using a robot arm imported from Germany, the company is carving the dragon from a special kind of polystyrene. As David Comer of Staging Rentals explained to ABC, “If you think of your arm, the robot works in the same way – shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers. It’s carving part of the head of the dragon. There are 31 separate sections of the head of the dragon.” The entire production will cost about $12 million, estimates Opera Australia artistic director Lyndon Terracini. “It’s a big undertaking, it’s a big risk, but fortunately last year we sold 60,000 tickets to people all around the world.”

A technician works on a section of the Turandot dragon

The dragon will call the Sydney Harbour home as 2016’s Handa Opera at Macquarie’s point commences in late March, and runs for a month. The production stars Dragana Radakovic and Daria Masiero in the title role, and Riccardo Massi and Arnold Rawls as the Prince Calaf.

For more information and tickets, visit the website here.