ELLEN Kent and Opera International will be paying three visits to The Anvil, Basingstoke, in the next few months.

They will bring new productions of Tosca and Turandot from the Chisinau Opera Company of Moldova.

Ellen Kent always manages to bring a few surprises to these performances - lately she has added various animals to the cast - horses, dogs and koi carp, as well as a few naked ladies.

So what's in store for the Chinese setting of Puccini's Turandot? A troupe of strolling pandas?

"No animals this time. But I'm delighted to say that I've managed to book the well-known Russian designer Alexander Okun, who has created a very elaborate set with huge hanging masks to represent the victims who have failed to answer Princess Turandot's riddle.

"By the way, Okun is now enjoying a great success with the Disney organisation."

Just before Christmas, Ellen went to Moldova to have a look at this latest Chisinau version of Turandot and decided that the small ballet in act one was very boring.

"So I had a little think, and with my southern Indian background - being brought up around Kerala - I was familiar with the Kathakali dance form, and one in particular, the very exotic Demon Dance, with the dancers wearing huge masks and padded costumes. I thought this is the sort of thing we need to sex up the Turandot ballet. I managed to get hold of a video of the Kerala dance and rushed it off to Chisinau so they could re-costume and re-choreograph the ballet. The masks will fit in with the general look.

"I am always adapting a little, but without destroying the traditional production. They are getting used to me in Chisinau, they just think I'm mad."

Turandot is seldom performed as a touring opera, simply because of its enormous expense. Ellen explains: "When Puccini was composing the opera he died just as his writing got to the point where Liu dies. The performances ended at that point until, many years later, Franco Alfano decided to write an ending, using Puccini's notes and sketches.

"This 'Alfano ending' became heavily copyrighted by the Ricordi Organisation in Milan, which represents many of the opera estates. But I must say Ricordi is very good to us and they do give us a decent deal, but it is still an expensive operation - and remember we don't get any subsidies from any of the arts funding bodies. We must exist on the box office takings."

When I spoke to Ellen she still hadn't worked out full details of the performance schedule, but said that Natalia Margarit would sing the role of Princess Turandot, and the role of Liu would be taken by either Korean soprano Rosa Lee Thomas or Irene Vinogradova, who sang Mimi in La Boheme and Michaela in Carmen in past Basingstoke performances.

As the Calaf, who sings that now so-well-known aria Nessun Dorma, it will be either Moscow tenor Akhmed Agadi or the superb Georgian tenor Teimuraz Guguchvili.

Turandot, with full orchestra and chorus, and sung in Italian with English subtitles, plays The Anvil on Sunday, February 8, and Friday, April 16. For tickets, contact the box office on 01256 844244.

Tosca appears on April 15.