How far would you go for love?

Taking a break from the 40 degree heat today, I went to see a Franco Zeffirelli production of Puccini’s Turandot filmed live at the Met in HD. As you may know, the Met has been showing a series of operas since last year throughout cinemas around the world. Cinema goers may be in different time zones but they see each opera as it goes out live. There is a VIP who introduces each opera, and who also interviews the stars and other members of the production team, in between acts. For example, today the person in charge of making severed heads, for operas like Salome, was interviewed. The young Latvian conductor was also interviewed. He said the thing he liked best about Turandot was the fact that Liu, a slave girl, sacrificed her own life to save the man she loved. He felt this act surpassed any heroic feats of war. It actually has echoes of the novel I’m attempting to write where the heroine, a Western girl, is coerced into working for the intelligence services and making sacrifices, to save the man she loves, who is a Uyghur.