Conducted by Antonio Pappano; Turandot, Catherine Foster; Calaf, Russell Thomas; Liù, Ermonela Jaho; Timur, Vitalij Kowaljow; Ping, Hansung Yoo; Pang, Aled Hall; Pong, Michael Gibson; Emperor Altoum, Alexander Kravets; Mandarin, Blaise Malaba. Director, Andrei Serban; Set Designer, Sally Jacobs; Lighting, F. Mitchell Dana; Revival Director, Jack Furness
Despite my concerns about this work, voiced here in this blog before, I found myself drawn to going to see this live performance because of several factors:
- The amazing Ermonela Jaho, singing Liu
- The first chance to hear Catherine Foster in a major role in the UK, after years of performing in Europe, and particularly Bayreuth
- The accolades given to Pappano’s reading of the score, his first in a live performance
- The interesting contrasts/connections between this work and The Dead City (see previous review), both products of the 1920’s
The production is one of the oldest in the ROHCG range of current productions, dating back to 1984. I last saw in 2017 with Christine Goerke as Turandot
After the rather cross account I gave of the Met Turandot live screening slightly less than a year ago, I was wondering what I would make of the 40 year old Serban production. I have to say that by comparison with the monstrous Zeffirelli production the ROHCG seemed relatively modest and appropriate, and also, to the extent possible in this work, not racist.
The basic staging in the first two acts is a two tiered gallery in which a shadowy chorus sits, with wooden platforms and walkways at centre stage. Red ribbons are strewn across the stage at the beginning and end of the work. The gallery splits up in the third act to something like a garden with appropriate Chinese style pavilions and lattice walls. There is a group of masked dancers who comment on the action. The Chinese aspects of the spectacle seem considered and respectfully handled. The Emperor comes down from the flies in a golden throne, Liu is taken off in a giant dragon hearse after dying in Act 3 and there are splendid heads of the various executed princes, which Ping, Pong and Pang work on. The executioner has a lumbering cart. None of these effects seem over the top or condescending
Musically this was a very fine evening indeed. Pappano brought out clearly many different strands of the music I’d never heard before, with the Stravinsky of Petrushka a particular influence. Some of the music – of the Act 2 Riddles, of some of Ping, Pang and Pong exchanges – sounds almost like Berg. There were many phrases delivered with bite, panache and pointing that made you feel you were hearing the music with the cotton wool of tradition somehow removed
It was very exciting to hear Catherine Foster for the first time – I had hoped to hear her in Elektra in 2020, but that got scuppered by Covid. The first performance of this production in 1984 featured Gwyneth Jones as Turandot. 40 years later Catherine Foster rather reminded me of her – a similarly big powerful, gorgeously-sounding voice, like Jones with a bit of a vibrato, but with the ability to sing softly with great beauty. Like Jones, her acting was rather of the semaphore variety. I would love to hear her as Brunnhilde or Isolde – it is extraordinary that she has been singing these heavy Wagner roles at Bayreuth since 2010 yet this run of Turandot is the first time she has been heard doing anything with one of the big UK opera companies since 2001. It was very pleasing to hear her for the first time. Pappano seemed similarly pleased when the two met on stage in curtain calls……….I hope that’s a good sign for the future. But it beggars belief why ENO, for instance, with their ill-fated Tristan in 2016, didn’t seek to employ Foster rather than the not wholly adequate American soprano they used instead (though admittedly having to learn the role again in English might have been something Foster was not prepared to do.)
Ermonela Jaho – who was also Liu in the Met screening – gave an outstanding performance. She is a powerful presence on stage, knowing that less is more. Her ability to use her voice with colour and imagination is extraordinary. In the first act she fined her powerful voice down to a floated whisper as she sung of her suppressed love for Liu. Rightly she, along with Pappano, got the biggest ovations.of the evening.
Russell Thomas was also very good. I heard him as a very competent Otello a few years ago and the qualities I remembered were on display here – a credible and commanding presence, powerful voice with top notes pinged out with ease and without any audience anxiety, but perhaps not so much musical subtlety….which anyway is hardly baked into the role of Calaf, and wasn’ta major factor.
A very enjoyable evening……
John's musical journey 