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Conductor: Zubin Mehta | Composer: Giacomo Puccini | Label: C Major

Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish (opera) / English (bonus)

Genre: Opera

Recorded at the spectacular new Santiago Calatrava-designed opera house in Valencia, Spain in May, 2008, this new production of Turandot is almost as magnificent as the Arts complex itself. Of course, there's no such thing as a simple production of Turandot; indeed, extravagance has almost become as much a raison d'etre for this opera as Birgit Nilsson used to be. Just look at the DVD competition: Franco Zeffirelli's for the Met is possibly his most lavish ever, with gazillions of extras and thousands of yards of silk; and one from Vienna under Valery Gergiev is almost unreal, with characters that are half mechanical, in an explosion of color and imagination that does nothing to enlighten the drama. (It features Luciano Berio's completion of the opera, which is not very appealing, and Gabriele Schnaut wobbles her way through the title role.) A Harold Prince production from Vienna in 1983 is bountiful as well, and has Eva Marton at her best and José Carreras in fine form.

The production under consideration here is stunning. Designed by Liu King with lush, multi-textured costumes by Chen Tong Xun, it looks authentically Chinese/Royal, with exquisite colors, a marvelous pagoda, and a red-carpeted staircase rising seemingly to heaven. Turandot alone has four dresses; she adds one to the other in mid-question scene, which struck me as odd; Ping Pang and Pong look as if a paint factory had exploded in their vicinity.

The direction, by film director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine), is less imaginative than you might expect. Granted, most of the action in this opera is proscribed by the situations, but what good does it do to portray Emperor Altoum as a drunk? Nor is it particularly clever to have lots of extras twirling white umbrellas and holding long-finger-nailed hands up to their faces. It's all good to look at but there are no new insights.

The gigantic-voiced Maria Guleghina is the Turandot. A rudimentary actress, she poses well and looks royal. Vocally the role holds no fears for her; and in fact, she sings more consistently on key than I've ever heard her in a live performance, including the mammoth high Bs and Cs. But I find her a graceless singer who goes more for volume than ideas, and her breaking of words in the middle for breath is a vile, unmusical habit. In the question scene we are treated to "Quel grido e quell[breath]la morte" for the sake of the high note. Bad planning and poor musicianship. And in non-loud moments she holds back too much; she entirely lacks the spontaneity to make her third-act transformation credible. The audience, however, seems to love her.

Marco Berti has what it takes for Calaf--a big voice, a pair of high Cs, stamina, nice generic passion, and sweet singing in "Non piangere Liu". Without being too unkind, however, I must acknowledge that when others are singing he looks like a stupid teddy bear, utterly uninterested in what's going on around him. Alexia Voulgaridou makes an enchanting Liu, singing with sensitivity to the text and high notes impeccable whether piano or forte. Alexander Tsymbalyuk impresses as Timur more with volume than understanding. The three masks are superb--musical, funny, bitter. And given the characterization of Altoum, we dare not judge what kind of voice Javier Agullo possesses.

Conductor Zubin Mehta leads a performance alternately shimmering, thrilling, and detailed; he gives the work the emotional wallop that his Calaf and Turandot lack. The playing of the Valencia forces is as grand as the sets and costumes. This performance, when all is said and done, is effective; but when you compare it with Marton and Domingo in their primes at the Met, or Marton and Carreras from Vienna, it doesn't quite make it.

Turandot is one of the best looking operatic Blu-rays yet, from Unitel Classica, featuring an AVC encoded 1080i image. Part of the splendor can be attributed directly to the really sumptuous physical production this opera has received. Unbelievably well saturated colors, especially reds, inhabit this piece and virtually pop off the screen at times. Detail is impeccable, with fine needlework on various costumes clearly discernable. Fleshtones are excellent (keep in mind many of these singers are very heavily made up), and contrast is also really superb throughout. Parts of the lighting design leave very evocative shadows drifting across sections of the stage, and black levels are consistent. Close ups provide a sometimes shocking level of detail, where you can literally see the strokes of eyebrow pencil on some actors' faces. It's a pleasure to see something this elegantly designed and delivered to Blu-ray so flawlessly.

Cast:

Turandot – Maria Guleghina

Altoum – Javier Agulló

Timur – Alexander Tsymbalyuk

Calaf – Marco Berti

Liù – Alexia Voulgaridou

Ping – Fabio Previati

Pang – Vincenç Esteve

Pong – Roger Padullés

Un mandarino – Ventseslav Anastasov

Valencia Regional Government Choir (Cor de la Gegneralitat Valenciana)

Valencian Community Orchestra (Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana)

Zubin Mehta, conductor

Chen Kai-ge, stage director

Recorded live from the Palau de les arts "Reina Sofía", Valencia, 2008.

Bonus feature:

- The Making of Turandot

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R E V I E W: The new opera house in Valencia is nothing if not ambitious. Its eye-opening Ring cycle, begun in 2007 and completed in 2009, will be reviewed soon; meanwhile, we have this extravagant production of Turandot from 2008, recorded during the Festival of the Mediterranean that follows the regular season. It was perhaps a daring choice to put the production in the hands of film director Chen Kaige, best known in the west for Farewell My Concubine—Kaige doesn’t read music and doesn’t have prior operatic experience. In the event, though, it turns out to have been a canny (if not quite ideal) choice. One major obstacle to success in this opera—especially in our more culturally sensitive century—is offering up the sheer spectacle of Puccini’s faux-Chinese world without falling into schlocky Orientalism and over-busy stage action. Kaige (with superb support from set designer Liu King and costume designer Chen Ton Xun) manages to find just the left touch: There’s no lack of visual splendor, but in part because the staging is inspired by traditional Chinese opera houses, the production has a striking elegance—indeed, one might even say, purity—as well. It may not be, as Mehta calls it in the bonus documentary, an “authentic Chinese” production—but there’s certainly nothing cheap or tawdry; even when huge crowds take over the huge stage, the action is marked by choreographic balance and exquisite control of colors. Yes, there are a number of missteps. The Emperor is played as a comic drunk, à la Strauss’s Herod; Liù, resisting both the libretto and biological possibility, strangles herself with her scarf. And I wish that Kaige had paid more attention to the acting of the main characters, who often stand stiffly and sing directly to the audience as if nothing were going on around them (that may explain why Calaf refers to Turandot’s silver gown when she’s actually wearing red). But as a totality, this is a visual treat, faithful to the spirit of the score and breathtakingly vivid on Blu-ray. It’s also an aural treat. The orchestra is a fairly young one, apparently hand-picked by music director Lorin Maazel—it plays with an infectious sense of occasion. Mehta, who’s in charge of the post-season festival, can sometimes be proficient in the worst sense. But his Decca Turandot with Sutherland and Pavarotti has stood for many (including me) at the top of the Turandot audio recordings, and he’s nearly as persuasive here, sweet and searing, haunting and hard, as this kaleidoscopic score requires. On the whole, perhaps, he favors pressure rather than perfume, but the atmosphere is enthralling throughout. The chorus sometimes sounds a bit thin (especially startling given the number of people on stage), but it sings with expression. The 5.1 sound (DTS-HD Master) has tremendous presence and clarity (bass lines are extremely clear), and antiphonal effects (the all-important extra brass as well as the offstage children’s choir) are handled extremely well. Of course, Turandot also requires some prodigious singing—singing with enough power to cut through the furor but also with enough sensitivity to create at least some sympathy for these vicious characters. For the most part, the leads here have the muscle, but not the nuance. Maria Guleghina, making her debut in the role she has played often since then, is a seasoned Abigale (in Verdi’s Nabucco; see Fanfare 28:6 and 32:4) and Lady Macbeth (in Verdi’s Macbeth; see 29:5). She has the necessary volume, reigning over the orchestra in the same way Turadot reigns over China, without signs of vocal distress. But while the singing is solid, there’s not much dramatic flexibility. There’s little sense, for instance, that she’s beginning a transformation during her exchange with Liù; nor is there much indication of her growing attraction to Calaf. Marco Berti is similarly bullish, with a big, well-controlled voice. Big and well controlled—but not especially engaging. Reviewing a recent La Gioconda, Henry Fogel described him as “a typical Italian routinier, with a hard, dry voice, no velvet in the tone, and an occasional tendency to sing flat,” pointing to the fact that “everything seems to sit between mezzo forte and fortissimo” (30:1). He’s a bit better than that here, actually managing to generate a fair amount of color—but he doesn’t seem especially aware of character or situation, with the consequence that his passion for Turandot remains even more inexplicable than usual. He chooses to cut short the final note of “Nessun Dorma”—which gives the aria a slightly awkward effect. Fortunately, Alexia Voulgaridou, a few pressured moments aside, has the necessary liquidity for Liù—and the other parts are generally well taken. In the end, then, this doesn’t quite overcome my preferred video version, the familiar Levine/Met performance. Yes, the Met version’s visual quality—which seemed so vivid not so many years ago—is washed out by comparison; its sound is relatively thin; and Zeffirelli’s production relatively hokey. But when Eva Marton and Plácido Domingo are singing, you get brought so fully into Puccini’s perverse world—and, let’s face it, this opera is more perverse even than Salomé—that it’s hard to resist. Still, this new version is a serious contender—and a technical knockout. FANFARE: Peter J. Rabinowitz

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Works on This Recording:

1. Turandot by Giacomo Puccini

Performer: Marco Berti (Tenor), Maria Guleghina (Soprano), Alexia Voulgaridou (Soprano),

Fabio Previati (Baritone), Vincenç Esteve (Tenor)

Conductor: Zubin Mehta

Orchestra/Ensemble: Valencia Community Orchestra, Valencia Regional Government Choir

Period: Romantic

Written: 1926; Italy

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Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123