THEATRE/OPERA: 'TURANDOT'
Venue: Pentas 1, KLPac
Date: ends Oct 25
KL City Opera’s (KLCO) staging of Puccini’s Turandot enters its final days at Pentas 1, KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC), with performances running through Oct 25. The opera returns to the KL stage after more than two decades.
Led by executive producers Danny Chen and Soon Yoon, the production features Italian conductor Alessandro Mazzocchetti, assistant conductor Bernard Tan and stage director Amelia Tan. The cast is accompanied by a 50-piece orchestra and a 70-member chorus comprising the KL City Opera Chorus and Young KL Singers.
Sopranos Cecilia Yap and Eleanor Greenwood alternate as Turandot, the princess who sets three riddles for her suitors, with death awaiting those who fail. Tenors Yap Jin Hin and Gui Foo Chen play Calaf, the prince who solves the riddles and gives Turandot until dawn to discover his name, wagering his own life if she succeeds.
Set in ancient Beijing, the opera explores the tension between Turandot’s fear of vulnerability and Calaf’s determination to win her love. As the city searches through the night for his identity, the story turns on questions of power, sacrifice and the possibility of change. Its best-known passage, the tenor aria Nessun Dorma, expresses Calaf’s confidence that he will prevail.
Puccini died before completing the score, and KLCO presents Franco Alfano’s traditional completion, the version most commonly performed worldwide.
Supported by the Italian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, the production at KLPac is part of the Week of the Italian Language in the World.
More info here.
ART DIALOGUE: 'JUMPA DI JURANG'
Venue: Art Hospital, National Art Gallery, KL
Date: Oct 24, 2pm
Happening this Saturday, artist Sharon Chin takes her exhibition Missing From The Scene across the capital, from The Back Room to the National Art Gallery’s Art Hospital, for a dialogue with writer Azzad Diah.
The two-hour dialogue examines the ideas behind Chin’s latest works, in which nearly 30 wayang kulit-inspired puppets made from Tetra Pak packaging evoke animals lost from their natural habitats.
By recasting discarded materials as figures of absence, Chin draws a connection between environmental loss, cultural memory and the stories societies tell about the natural world.
The discussion will also explore how traditional shadow puppetry can connect art, community and environmental concerns, alongside the ideas underpinning the exhibition.
The public can also view the National Art Gallery’s wayang kulit puppets and observe the restoration process, offering a closer look at the work involved in preserving these cultural objects.
The Jumpa Di Jurang dialogue begins at 2pm. Free admission event.
More info here.
EXHIBITION: WLG INCUBATOR YOUNG ARTISTS SHOW 2026
Venue: Wei-Ling Gallery, Brickfields, KL
Date: ends Nov 14
Wei-Ling Gallery is showing present Again and again and again, a group exhibition by Ejin Sha, Forrest Wong and Mira Ariel Ong, part of the WLG Incubator Programme 2026.
The exhibition looks at how repetition can become a way of remembering, making, looking and understanding.
Across three distinct practices, the artists return to gestures, materials and experiences whose meaning shifts with each repeated encounter.
The selected artists, Sha, Wong and Ong, spent six months developing their practices through discussions with Pakistani sculptor and programme mentor Amin Gulgee. International guest mentor Ahmet Ogut also joined a session of dialogue and feedback, offering further perspectives.
The WLG Incubator Programme was launched in 2020 as a platform to highlight and collaborate on projects with progressive artists who are critical towards shaping Malaysian contemporary art today.
More info here.
POP-UP: OFFSET STORE
Venue: Ombak KLCC
Date: ends Oct 30
The Offset Store pop-up at Ombak KLCC extends the reach of the KL Illustration Fair (KLIF), bringing art merchandise by 20 featured local and regional artists and illustrators to a wider audience. Running until Oct 30, the project offers an opportunity to explore illustration beyond the annual fair.
The selection includes art prints, zines and artist-designed objects, giving visitors different ways to engage with illustration and take home work by independent artists.
For the participating indie vendors, merchandise offers another way to circulate their work, while prints and smaller items provide a more accessible entry point for new collectors.
The pop-up builds on KLIF’s May edition, which featured more than 200 illustrators and collectives. Its presence at Ombak KLCC offers visitors a more relaxed setting to browse the artists’ work, away from the crowds at KLIF.
By bringing independent illustration into a shopping destination, Offset Store also reaches visitors who might not ordinarily seek out art events. Admission is free, open 10am to 10pm.
More info here.
LECTURE/TALK: 'CREOLE BIOGRAPHIES, SACRED SEASCAPES AND COSMOPOLITANISM IN THE MALAY WORLD'
Venue: Level 5, Ilham Gallery, KL
Date: Oct 24, 3pm
This Saturday, Dr Sumit Mandal, author of Becoming Arab: Creole Histories And Modern Identity In The Malay World, examines how mixed cultural identities and maritime connections shaped cosmopolitan life in the Malay world.
Focusing on Ahmad Rijalluddin, a Malay-Chulia writer whose 1810 travelogue documented his journey from Penang to Kolkata, the lecture explores how people of mixed ancestry, including Malay-Arab and Chulia-Arab communities, connected distant parts of the Indian Ocean through trade, diplomacy, multilingualism and travel.
Often regarded as familiar strangers, they helped shape a Malay world that was culturally diverse and closely connected to wider networks.
The lecture also considers how the sea remained central to the region’s cultural imagination even as European imperial powers expanded their influence and adopted a more land-based outlook. These histories offer a different perspective on cosmopolitanism and its relevance to the present.
Mandal holds the Muhammad Alagil Chair in Arabia Asia Studies at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. His book challenges colonial and national distinctions between indigenous and foreign identities, highlighting the extent to which societies in the Malay world were interconnected. Free admission event.
More info here.
EXHIBITION: RAFIEE GHANI'S 'DUSUN LAUT'
Venue: Galeri Puteh, KL Eco City, Kuala Lumpur
Date: ends Nov 7
Any gallery feels more alive when Rafiee Ghani’s work is on show. He has a way of transporting viewers to faraway places through his art.
The veteran artist returns to the gallery scene this month with Dusun Laut, an exhibition at KL’s Galeri Puteh featuring more than 50 mixed media works, including charcoal drawings on paper.
In Dusun Laut, Rafiee’s works go beyond geographical locations to become repositories of memories of seas, islands, coastlines, forests, villages and cities, and the people he encounters.
He is equally interested in the customs, traditions, arts and cultural practices that shape communities and define their identities.
“Dusun Laut is an exhibition of abstract paintings born from experiences of travelling, sailing and moving through the landscapes and spaces of the Nusantara," says Rafiee in the exhibition notes.
Like a wanderer charting the contours of memory, Rafiee draws on the environments, cultures and traditions of the wider Malay Archipelago and South-East Asia, tracing a path from Indonesia and Borneo to Myanmar, Thailand and Papua New Guinea.
Free admission exhibition.
More info here.
