Opera on Ice: Turandot at the Olympics

Scene: Milano Ice Skating Arena 

Time: April 1926- February 13, 2026 

Composer: Giacomo Puccini/Christopher Tin 

Starring: Yuma Kagiyama 

First, a little history: in 2024, to mark the 100^th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini’s death, Washington National Opera Artistic Director Francesca Zambello produced the composer’s last opera Turandot. Puccini himself struggled with creating a convincing finale to his opera and left it unfinished at his death. In the intervening years, three other composers undertook the challenge, but Zambello wanted a more modern and sympathetic denouement to the love affair between the cruel Princess Turandot, and the noble hero Calaf. She therefore commissioned composer Christopher Tin and librettist Susan Soon He Stanton to provide a new ending. The WNO production with its new finale was a success.  

This April also marks the 100^th anniversary of Turandot’s posthumous premiere in Milan’s La Scala. On February 13^th, the Japanese figure skater and 2022 silver medalist, Yuma Kagiyama, will pay homage to Puccini by skating in the men’s freestyle competition to a special version of Christopher Tin’s Turandot finale.  

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Christopher Tin is a two-time Grammy award winner known for his gaming and movie scores. He says that he got a phone call from Francesca Zambello after she heard his work on one of her son’s video games. “I might be the first person in history to get [the call] from a piece of video game music,” he told an interviewer from Winnipeg’s Classic 107 radio station. 

Over a period of five years, Tin “did his homework,” mining Puccini’s music and sketch books to craft an ending that would be true to the opera and to his own 21^st century sensibilities. “In this new ending,” he said, “we hope to create a more three-dimensional Turandot ...I don't want to slavishly try to impersonate Puccini, because nobody wants to hear a second-rate Puccini, but maybe somebody might want to hear a first-rate Christopher Tin.”  

Carolina Kostner and Lori Nichol, Yuma Kagiyama’s skating coach and choreographer, certainly wanted to hear Christopher Tin’s music. They were searching for glorious, epic, Olympic-sized musical accompaniment for Yuma’s skating. What could be better than the finale to Turandot? 

Of course, the 18-minute opera finale had to be telescoped to fit Yuma’s 4:10 Olympic performance. The team raised funds and worked together to match the music to the requirements of the sport, timing the jumps and spins and other technical elements. I imagine Tin’s expertise as a video game scorer came in handy. They booked the Abbey Road studios, hired all-star musicians--soprano Christine Goerke and tenor Clay Hilley, the English National Opera Chorus and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Matthew Quinn and recorded Yuma Kagiyama’s score. Millions will watch the performance on February 13th, including Christopher Tin and his family, who will be in the stands at the Milano Ice Skating Arena, cheering him on. And if that’s not an operatic finale....it may end in triumph or tragedy, but it will be beautiful.