The Portland Opera’s Turandot

The Portland Opera likes to bring in local cartoonists to see their dress rehearsals; in return, the cartoonists draw the opera they’ve seen. I participated back in November, drawing Hansel and Gretel. And this Monday, I saw Turandot. Here are my Turandot drawings (click on the drawings to see them bigger):

Here, we see our hero, whose name is something of a mystery. He spent a lot of the opera hugging himself in his big leather trenchcoat.

Here, the hero struggles to ring a gong, while three colorfully-dressed city bureaucrats try to talk him out of it.

Thanks to Portland Opera for the chance to do this (and for the free food!).

Mike Russell has a complete summary of Turandot’s plot in cartoon form! (My favorite line: “Don’t get up or anything!”). And Matt Grigsby has several drawings from the production. This is just the start of the Turandot drawings — there were a bunch of us there. If you’re interested in seeing more, watch the #pdxoperacomics tag on twitter.

UPDATE: And here’s a third drawing:

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