Puccini: Turandot (Turandot - 2008 Production Staged By Chen Kaige) [Blu-ray] [2009]

This is a beautiful but unusual production. Instead of conventional sets the scenery represents a Chinese pavilion with the drama placed within it. It is divided into three sections with a massive central staircase which becomes visible when required. The crowd (chorus) watches the drama with the the theatre audience. Short periods of darkness separate the scenes, cutting to the orchestra before the action begins. The booklet lists the tracks in each act, but does not describe the scenes - no City Walls, Pavilion, Palace Garden etc. The descriptions of the elaborate and colourful Chinese settings in the original libretto would help if included in the booklet. The brilliant costumes are visually stunning.
On first watching I missed Turandot's appearance in which she confirms the sentence on the Prince of Persia, and captivates Calaf. She emerged quietly from the crowd, the camera focussed on her, she made the condemnatory gesture and exited via the stairs. Ping, Pang and Pong had a jolly few minutes on swings during the second part of their trio. Turandot's initially simple Act 2 costume underwent a magical transformation. At the end of "In Questa Reggia" she left the stage momentarily, reappearing in an ice blue creation, bedecked with jewels, and wearing a glittering head-dress.
The singing is what one expects. Guleghina is a commanding Turandot - expressive and accurate in the difficult score. Marco Berti's Calaf was robust and he looked suitably heroic, but I felt he had a slight tendency to attack some notes from below: this was unfortunate as I started to listen for it. For me Alexia Voulgaridou as Liu was the star - beautiful singing and acting. The other roles were very good especially Timur; the three masks were delightful. Unlike one press reviewer I didn't think Altoum appeared particularly inebriate; he was just very old and very tired of the relentless mayhem of Turandot's reign. Who wouldn't like a drop of wine to get some relief from the stream of beheadings?
The usual Alfano conclusion omitted Turandot's aria "Del primo pianto" as seems common in stage performances, although usually included in modern recordings.
The orchestra plays superbly and I heard some facets of the score for the first time. The recorded sound does it justice.
As an aside, Decca recorded the full Alfano conclusion with Josephine Barstow on a 1990 CD called Opera Finales. A few copies may still be around in the UK and the USA. A reissue is long overdue.

During the recent boom years Valencia was awash with EU money and this shows in the new Palau de les Artes and its productions. However, new money rarely is accompanied by good taste.

No production of Turandot could hope for a better Puccini conductor than Zubin Mehta, who doesn't disappoint leading a superb provincial orchestra. Guleghina delivers a commanding Princess Turandot both vocally and dramatically. Unfortunately Berti as Calaf doesn't quite match her role engagement and spends much of the time plodding slowly accross the stage. Vocally Berti puts in a fine effort. The stars of the show in my opinion were Voulgaridou (Liu) and Tsymbalyuk (Timur). Voulgaridou comprehensively steals the show in Act 3 with a performance that is so moving and heart-breaking it will stay with you long after you have forgotten Nessun Dorma. Tsymbalyuk's bass is the most impressive I have heard in a long while and his visceral grief at Liu's death is crushing.

Unfortunately the production suffers terribly from the sillies. The uniforms of the guards, and Calaf's beer-barrel skirt, look garishly plasticy. The Emperor, instead of being a dignified patriarch, is a drunken buffoon surrounded by lady-boys. Pu-Tin-Pao is an underfed teen. Worst of all Ping Pang and Pong are 3 clowns. Puccini intended these characters to be bouffe but not like this. Being one red-nose short of a tricycle was particlarly ridiculous for the Act 3 grieving scene and shows a complete lack of understanding. Poor show.

This blu-ray is worth owning just for the scenes from "Principessa Divina" to "Liu Poesia". (You'll need tissues.) But if this is your first Turandot then I would suggest you are better off with Marton/Domingo at the Met.

There are several markedly problems with this production, and right from the start:

Beginning with static stage movements' chorus is halved left and right with no purpose in their movements, reminiscent of a high school amateur play setting and gestures.

Right from the start it also becomes painfully obvious that Calaf (Marco Berti - Tenor), has no stage presentation and looks like a barrel walking on two legs - a walking barrel: too fat, thick, barely moves across the stage, and for no obvious reason they dressed him like a Roman soldier.
OK, one would say, if only his voice would possess a golden `klang', flexibility, an elaborate expression - but no, it does not have any of those:
The voice is too wobbly at times; it struggles to reach and stay with the higher notes, has no `hero' sound to it, and has no flexibility of phrase. Sorry; this is a third class tenor inserted into in a production which aspires to become a Blu-ray land mark.

The old Timur (Tsymbalyuk) is fine, although he possesses a strange vibrato tremolo not heard too often from an Italian cultivated bass voice (actually, he is Russian which might explain this enigma).

The slave girl Liu (Alexia Voulgaridou) sings fine but the voice is just a too old for the young slave girl role and sounds too dramatic. No comparison here with the Metropolitan's DVD Leona Mitchell in this role, and certainly no comparison with the excellent childish-like (vocally and visually) sparkling young voice of Cecilia Gasdia for the `Arena di Verona Turandot' DVD production.

And: Chain Kaige staging does this bizarre thing amongst other things:
He strips off the mystery of Turandot's figure and reveals her too soon `in broad day light so to speak: her first entry is from amongst the stage public - carrying a man's helmet on her head like a Wagnerian Walkure figure (it's only when she removes the helmet and exposes her long hair, that one see it is the `princes Turandot') - still, at these moments she looks too much like a Wagnerian Brunhilde the walkure, and much less than Turandot - the mystery figure.
Would it be that Kaige as a stage director wants to give us a glimpse of what Kaige would have staged next with at this same theatre and with this same conductor, Mehta? - meaning the Wagner Das Ring der Niebelungen...?

Watching the emperor role in Chain Kaige staging of Turandot is like watching a drunken Bacchus:
The Kaige staging portrays the old emperor as drunk Roman figure from the Nero era: simply drunk and busy drinking...The choice of an actor/singer for the emperor is sorely wrong here: The face and the voice of the actor chosen are much too young (Javier Aguillo). This `old' emperor has no gray hair, instead, he has a full dark brown crest of hair and a full dark beard (a stupid approach)...
The Aguillo voice (as the old emperor) is fresh, a young tenor voice that tries to pass as "old" but the role asks for a true old frail voice coming from an older actor; this approach here on this DVD of putting a youngster to play the "old" person is not a trustworthy choice.
(Watch and hear the Metropolitan Opera production with the veteran, true old, singer/narrator Huges Cuenod and how this roll should be presented).

Turandot (Maria Gulenghina) is sung ALMOST well, but not quite;
Maria Gulenghina has difficulties in approaching the trumpet-like force called for in the high notes.
True, she gets those notes but does so with much strain and difficulty: ones she gets there she immediately abandon the note for fear that something will either collapse or break-down.
Surely - this is no Ghena Dimitrova - the Turandot of the Arena de Verona, and not Eva Marton - the Turandot for James Levine and the Metropolitan opera in Franco Zeffirelli staging.
True, Maria Gulenghina's voice sounds a bit like Ghena Dimitrova's voice at the middle and the lower-range, but it does not have the power reserves Dimitrova possess, nor has she the clarity-silvery trumpet-voice of Eva Marton in this role.
(Maria Gulenghina is favorably remembered here for her Metropolitan performances of Verdi's Lady Macbeth from few years ago, and even then she had problems keeping the higher notes and the clean upper register !).

The conducting is classical for Zubin Mehta, though he has achieved greater heights for the Decca recording of the late Seventies with Sutherland, Pavarotti and Monserrat Caballe (would it be that he felt that this is not the case for a total commitment?).

The staging and the illumination on this Blu-ray recording is quite rich and colorful, the costumes too, but stage movements of the participants are static and at times naive and disappointing...The whole setting lacks tension, drama and purpose the way Franco Zeffirelli's staging for the Metropolitan Opera has, where excitement, fluidity, drama and drive are the assets.

From the vocal point of view, staging and performance, one would do much better buying the Levine/Zeffirelli/Metropolitan DVD, with Eva Marton, Leona Mitchell, Flacido Dominigo, or one should try to get the rare and hard to come by DVD of the `Arena di Verona' Turandot (an unforgettable performance illuminated by the stars of opera, with the superb Ghena Dimitrova, Martinucci, Cecilia Gasdia, and Ivo vinvo.