Despite the presence of the lavish Zeffirelli production, I ultimately found the Met’s production of Turandot to be an average night at the opera. Marred by uneven singing and inconsistent conducting, this show didn’t thrill me.
Turandot is Puccini’s second time writing about Asia (Asian fetish alert!). Here, the titular heroine is an icy biotch, which I love, and only through Calaf’s nonconsensual wooing of her is she changed. Unlike Madama Butterfly’s unfortunately believable plot (men are trash), Turandot is much more fantastical, set in essentially a fantasy land China. Due to Puccini’s death, the ending also suffers, as Liu sacrifices herself for Calaf only for him to reveal his name like two seconds later, and then he and Turandot fall in love basically over the corpse of Liu. Even by opera standards, it’s pretty harsh.
Regardless of how ridiculous the plot is, Turandot does not suffer from ridiculous music. To the contrary actually, Turandot is quite good with the music being adventurous, and intense. Immediately, I was struck by dissonance in the score, and I enjoyed the inclusion of Chinese music into the score. This was my first viewing of Turandot, and I was satisfied
Franco Zeffirelli’s production is a bona fide classic at this point. Debuting in 1987, the sets are lavish and grand. The palace in particular was bright and golden, filled with details that add up to a staging that isn’t watered down or dated. The lavishness of the production seemed to seep into the direction as well. The chorus is constantly packed into the set, giving a real sense of life to the staging, but I did, however, think that at points it was too much. For example, Act I had random dragon dancing, people running around, the chorus singing, and about 50 other things happening at the same time. The result was visual overstimulation, with the production lacking focus at times for the sake of grandeur. While I don’t necessarily mind this choice, it was a bit much for no real reason. Would I see the production again? Absolutely. I just think it can be toned down. A-
Aleksandra Kurzak’s Liu was the best of the cast. Her voice projects well, and despite a slightly shaky “Signore, ascolta” her Liu was overall good. I saw Kurzak in Turandot the night before I saw her in Madama Butterfly, so I was curious to see how she’d manage her voice. Thankfully, the role is somewhat short, and her death scene with its two arias was a highlight of the night. Liu is a role that suits her lyric voice well, and her characterization was, I found, correct in her defiance of Turandot and her unrequited love for Calaf. She creates a very sympathetic character. B+
Calaf is a role that I think SeokJeong Baek will grow into. Originally training as a baritone, Baek is still somewhat new to being a tenor. He still retains darkness and richness from his earlier baritone days, and his voice is one that I expect will be a prominent spinto tenor in the coming years. I overall enjoyed his Calaf. The voice is even with good power from top to bottom, though his high notes lack freeness at times, sounding occasionally constricted and opaque. When Baek did get notes to ring out unrestricted and clear, which was most of the time, the sound was thrilling. His big aria, “Nessun dorma” was good, though I felt he lacked legato in his singing that gave a somewhat choppy effect, especially in the beginning. His climactic high note rung out well, but lacked freeness.
I expect that Baek’s characterization of Calaf will also come with time. In this production, his acting came off as a little wooden with him seemingly looking for his mark to power pose. He, however, was successful in physically portraying the brashness of Calaf, and he infused his character with a sense of youthful confidence. Overall a good performance, and I’d be happy to see Baek again. He can only get better in my eyes. B
Elena Pankratova’s Turandot started off very shaky, but improved as the night went along. Acclaimed recently for her Wagner and her Turandot, the voice is undoubtedly a dramatic voice, but it didn’t ring, or ride the orchestra like I expected. There were a couple moments at the end of act II, where she blasted notes and seemed to sing free, but overall there weren’t enough of these moments to sustain the kind of Turandot that can be thrilling. To be fair, she comes out cold, and begins with “In questia reggia” which not only requires explosive high notes, but a requisite intensity, which Pankratova lacked. Pankratova notably struggled with her upper register during the scene, and the attack on the high notes was often not clean. It wasn’t the kind of power singing I expected, and there were pitch problems as well. I was thus surprised to find her best moments came in softer passages where she could be lyrical. The middle of her voice was particularly nice, and after “In questia reggia” she seemed much more at ease and noticeably better in her role.
I also felt her Turandot could’ve been more strongly characterized. During “In questia reggia” I felt a noticeable lack of intensity. Turandot is supposed to be recoubnting the horror of her ancestor’s past as if she was living it herself and this desperation was missing from Pankratova. She and Baek also lacked chemistry in their few scenes together. I would see Pankratova again, but I would prefer to see her in Wagner where she’d have more time to warm up and blast the voice like she’s capable of. B-
Oksana Lyniv’s symphonic conducting of Turandot was good. In bringing a more symphonic approach, I thought that Lyniv let the score bring out the emotion of the work moreso than an approach that lets the singers do it. Her conducting to me was strong and confident while demonstrating a great understanding of the opera. A-
Stray Observations
Turandot was the opera that got me into opera, and I still remember turning it on around midnight on PBS, as they did a Live from the Met rerun. I was intrigued about the idea of an opera set in China, about China, but sung in Italian by white people. That production featured Maria Guleghina as Turandot, Marina Poplavskaya as Liu, and Marcello Giordani as Calaf. That performance astounded me, not necessarily for the singing, but the grandness of the show, and form there my intiruge only grew to where we are now. Almost spellbound, I began casually listening to opera soon after, starting with the seminal Zubin Mehta/Sutherland/Pavarotti/Caballe recroding of Turandot.
The audience notably had no idea when to clap