The Fairy Princess has not been outrageously angry in a while. In fact, you may have noticed that her posts have been generally uplifting because…post pandemic times.

However, she is now ready to tackle the last bastion of #EgregiousYellowface, yes, beyond The Mikado within the New York area – a problem NYGASP solved quite nicely a few years ago…Kids, we have to talk about THE MET.

No one at THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE has seemingly got the memo that their productions of Madama Butterfly and Turandot are outdated and hackney. Yes, TFP said that. Outdated AF.

TFP has mentioned, throughout the years, that this is an actual problem – and while she skewered The Welsh Opera so badly she wound up in an actual book, and the The Royal Opera so deftly they have removed blackface makeup from their programme – something The Met has followed suit on, the white folks in charge continue to cling to the outdated notion that Caucasians in glaring yellow face paint are acceptable as long as they sing beautifully.

It is not acceptable in this, our Year of the Wooden Dragon 2024, in the city of New York, where the culture of THE WORLD looks to to find forward thinkers, to willingly place on the stage, year after year – yellow face makeup intended to disguise non Asians as Asians simply because they want the elaborate chinoiserie of the existing set – money is tight, we get it – keep the set, change the makeup.

You need the big voices for this opera?

TFP gets it – she was a voice major – ok – stop painting the singers.

Do you smell what the Princess is cooking?

Keep the set – lose the makeup.

Here is the basic plot of Turandot – and as opera plots go, it is typical.

Set in Peking – which is an ACTUAL place in China.

Not at all mythic, Met Opera Website – and that is what gets TFP‘s goat most of all.

China is a real and actual place. Peking was a real and actual city. A city, by the way, yes famous for it’s duck and also a city that TFP has visited. Nowhere within the city of Peking – then or now – were people wandering around in yellowface makeup. In fact, the City of Peking is now Beijing, and here is a map of Beijing, a real and actual place. Beijing is the captial of the People’s Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world – but it is a city.

It has always been a city.

If you are wondering if yellowface is just makeup – well no it is not.

Yellowface is the base color of a lot of the makeup and the masks worn in The Met’s production – but yellowface is ALSO obsequious gestures, it is ALSO mincing ‘asian-esque’ ways of walking, or raising a sword, or excessive bowing. To put it bluntly, Yellowface is the way that White Creatives not so subtley place the word “other’ upon Asian features as images of ridicule and derision and includes behavior AND makeup.

So here is the story aka ‘the libretto’ – and btw, TFP has her Certification in Opera Direction from Ithaca College – a relatively new program – precisely because she wants to direct Opera so that she can make opera enjoyable for ALL. She also holds a degree from CMU in Classical Voice – so please, spare her the diatribe that she does not know what she is talking about. Woe is you. Yes, she knows it was not ever supposed to be about Asians specifically, because it was supposed to be about Italians – so then – MAKE IT ITALIAN!

It is precisely because she does know what she is talking about that makes her so angry. It is because so much care has been taken by The Met to ‘Explain away the racism’ that it makes her blood literally boil – because she wants so badly for them to do better.

For heaven’s sake, they are premiering an opera with a libretto by David Henry Hwang – so how do do you do that? While also in the same season do this?

Caucasian features are not the only ones entitled to enjoy fantastic, world class singing. Everyone should be able to attend the opera with a ticket and enjoy all the things that opera is – the outrageous stories, the gloried voices, the orchestra, the ballets woven in the middle – without feeling like someone was told to make fun of them.

There is no other way to way to say it – the current production of TURANDOT at The Met is employing yellowface, which mocks Asians. Specifically the Chinese, but pretty much any Asian person who attends or who plays in the orchestra is going to have some feelings about what is being presented on the stage. Which is how we know that eventually, this Opera will be banned, which will be a shame. If one cannot change and adapt, a species goes into extinction – because it has outlived it’s usefulness – and that is the frank and utter danger that classical music is nearing towards.

Who is driving this trend? White creatives and Opera Board members that say that ‘that was the way it was written’ in order to perpetuate racism. They have been saying this at The Met, in this way, since 1926 if anyone is keeping score. They would rather invest in their website than in finding talent that would elevate the production in terms of this issue. Or just hey – if it is ‘all about the voices and the music’, don’t use the wigs, makeup, masks, and costumes. Make it all about the music. Do it in concert.

If you cannot – it is not about the music at all.

Think about it.

Also – the singers who do not object to the makeup – you are at fault as well. #SorryNotSorry

Also the makeup artists working there, this is on you all as well.

TFP knows she will ruffle feathers with this post – as it is a Puccinni opera she assumes it will be peacock feathers imported for their exotic-ness. Because of course it will.

Also can TFP just say, Turandot is a Persian word meaning “The daughter of Turan” – Turan used to be a region of Central Asia, which was part of the Persian Empire so ALREADY, this is going to be bad, because a Chinese freaking Princess cannot GET an Chinese freaking name! Which is, in part, why when it was performed in Beijing in 1995 the location of the opera was changed to Central Asia.

In case you are missing the point – you do not set a show in an actual Chinese city and then name the main character a non Chinese name – it does not make sense – it so far from making sense, you might as well give her a Babylonian name…oh wait, that’s another one, anyway, Turandot has the wrong name.

There has never been any authenticity about Turandot at all. Not at all – so why hold on to these tropes?

Back to the story of the opera – There is a Princess, Princess Turandot. Anyone wishing to marry her will have to answer three riddles – if you get any wrong, DEATH TO YOU, oh suitor! Most recently, the Prince of Persia (oh see we have East Asians and West Asians fighting now…just throw them all in there like an Asian stew already Puccini) failed the test.

Honestly – missing a test question and being sentenced to death does kind of track for Asians, but we move on.

So the Prince of Persia (not Jake Gyllenhal) is going to be executed, and the crowd asks for Turandot’s mercy, and she has none, so off he goes to die. In the crowd are three people – a slave gir, Liu, her employer who himself is a long lost King of Tartary who now goes by Timur, and Calaf – who recognizes Timur as his long lost father. When Calaf sees the Princess Turandot, he falls for her and he then decides he will take the test to win her for his wife.

Nothing says true love at first sight like the possibility of death.

Enter the three Ministers of the state – Peking is a city, but ok whatever – and their names are…wait for it, Ping, Pang, and Pong. They lament their blood thirsty virgin of a princess, because it messes with their groove, and no one wants to mess with a groove if you have one.

Anyway, Calaf comes in, despite everything and answers Turandot‘s questions correctly. So she ‘has’ to marry him – she does not want to, because she is trying to fix generational trauma – as her Auntie or Great Auntie or Great Great Auntie, Princess Lou-Ling, was abducted and killed by someone who wanted to marry her – so, she Turandot is not having it, and she is going to kill every man she comes in contact with that she has the right to kill. (Chinese people do refer to everyone elder to them as Auntie, this may be the most Asian part of this whole thing)

Honestly, who can blame her?

Calaf answers correctly. It is very Sphinx inspired. However he wants her to love him, so he says he will forfeit his life if, by dawn, Turandot can learn his name.

This part is very Rumplestiltskin.

Turandot, not wishing to marry a stranger and possibly dealing with a mental issue, issues a proclamation that no one in Peking shall sleep until Calaf‘s name is learned. Also, she will have anyone tortured that refused to reveal it. The slave girl Liu, in order to save her master, the deposed King Timur, tells Turandot that she alone knows Calaf’s name, but she will not reveal it. Liu is tortured, but does not reveal it, and Turandot finally gives in and asks what gives Liu the strength to resist revealing the name, and Liu says “love’ and then grabs a dagger and kills herself.

We would see this theme somewhat repeated in The King & I many years later, eh, Tuptim?

Everyone else marches off to an impromptu and heavily staged funeral while Calaf and Turandot stay behind. Calaf steals a kiss from Turandot, who confesses she knows emotion for the first time (remember she has generational trauma and a possible mental issue), who cries, and then Calaf reveals his name and they get married. Also, Turandot says essentially, “I knew your name it is love”

Now, the current production at The Met does have an Asian Tenor as Calaf, South Korean, SeokJong Baek, who was described by The New York Times thusly:

We ‘love that for him’, however having one Asian face on the stage in a lead role does not negate all of this chinoiserie – and it will not when Peixin Chen takes one the role of King Timur in April.

The only thing that is going to make this opera truly palatable is more Asian faces in it – not just in the leads, in the dancers, in the chorus – Asian faces within an Asian centered story – even if it was original meant to skewer Italian diplomats – yeah, no one gets that reference anymore.

Change must happen – or do not do it.

Not to mention that Turandot is yes, wearing a Dragon on her costume.

Dragon Ladies are real and created by Italian men, now we know. Always wondered.

Please look at the actual Asian face on the right, please tell TFP what your thoughts are upon looking at the one Asian face surrounded entirely by NON Asian faces. We have Ping, Pang, and Pong in the back, totally not Asian – slathered in hideous makeup, instead of being portrayed as actual people, while Turandot‘s father is wearing a mask entirely – that yes, takes it’s nod from actual Chinese costumes – however without it being an entire production of masks, it sticks out and is again, negating his humanity.

However the ‘best’ part is that during the ballet – which is the one part in the opera where they have more than one Asian person available to be featured – they have given all the solos to the…wait for it – THE WHITE DANCERS. (P,P,&P are singers in Act 1 and then are dancers in Act 2)

So let’s get this straight – in an Opera about China, that has the wrong name, but uses a Chinese folk song as a recurring theme which is just honestly theft, Mr. Puccini, where the Dragon Lady slaughters men who intend forced marriage and potential rape for failing to answer a question correctly (Ok, the test thing does kind of track though…), they have an opportunity to integrate the soloists – much as they did the tenor part of Calaf, and use Asian people to play Asian people and they…used white people.

TFP‘s Mum was an Advanced Teacher the Royal English Ballet System – she knows this because she found the certifications and scrolls btw, so – no – it is not a question. Therefore when TFP says to a degree she knows how ballet works – SHE KNOWS!

Soloists get paid more. If someone has been a soloist in a past ballet, and this time they are up for being a soloist in a ballet within an opera where they would have more to lend the production than simply dance, they could lend the authenticity of their features – one would think that The Met would be dying to use those dancers.

There are three solos. They have two Asian heritaged dancers. They have used exactly NONE of them.

The solos are Ping, Pang, and Pong in Act 2, changed from the singers they ‘were’ in Act 1. This is what we name Pandas, my guy.

Question- if this opera is really ‘all about the music’ then why is it so important to have these sets and costumes from 1966?’ Why the excessive makeup?

When we are now in 2024?

When does understanding and cultural sensitivity apply to Asian heritaged people in Opera?

This is an honest question- when do people and institutions stop trying us on like a piece of outerwear?

Le sigh.

Take a look.

TFP asks- how do we solve Yellowface at The Met?

The big Puccini type voices are one in a million, they are – and the arias are glorious. TFP loves the music, hates the production. Nothing you can say will make her comfortable in an audience for this piece.

However, if opera does not change, it will die. So figure it out, ‘The Met’.

Your productions cost MILLIONS of dollars – if you can figure out designing a website that absolves you of perpetuating this chinoiserie, then you can figure out how to do an ethical production of Turandot, of Madama Butterfly and so on.

Refusing to not cast the Asian faces you do have, when they have been soloists before, which would lend authenticity is baffling!

This is just exhausting.

TFP out.