Turandot is the last opera by Puccini and this production is really amazing. It is elegant and gorgeous,transporting us to Ming dynasty China. The highlights are Lise Libdstrom as Turandot and esprcially Eri Nakamura as Liù. Eri Nakamura I knew from her Gilda that she is a very touching soprano and here as Liù she is sweet,kind and able to bring the audience to tears .Lise Lindstrom as Turandot is dignified,cold,distant and yet warm in the end. Marco Berti I am not a fan of,but he was good as Calaf(I remember him mostly as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly). He does have chemistry with his colleagues and brings all emotions of Calaf. Truly amazing Turandot from The Royal Opera House .9/10.
2 Reviews
Plenty of drama, spectacle and grandeur to be found in Royal Opera's production of Turandot
TheLittleSongbird13 September 2015
As Turandot was my first opera singing in the chorus in my early-mid-teens, there is a lot of fondness for it. It has a very riveting dramatic story and typically magnificent music that is among the most intense of any of Puccini's operas and contains some of his most melodically beautiful arias. Turandot's most well-known moment is the tenor aria Nessun Dorma, one of the most famous arias in the world, but there is much more to it than this one aria. This is a truly excellent production from the Royal Opera, not my favourite production of Turandot but it does contain everything that is needed to make a successful production of Turandot work.
The production looks great, the Oriental detail is so lavishly colourful and grand, the sets have the appropriate atmosphere being foreboding and opulent and the costumes , especially Turandot's and Liu's, are tasteful and suit the setting very well. This is not just in the production values, it looks great on DVD too, apart from a tendency to have too dark a background. Instead of having too many close-ups or being too distant the camera work has the right amount of the cinematic and the intimate, allowing one to take in the action and have an expansive view of it without being too busy or too lingering, and throughout it is always clear who the focus is meant to be on. The picture quality has not an ounce of grain, the sound has great resonance and clarity which allows one to hear all the music's detail and the subtitles are some of the best and more accurate of any opera production DVD seen recently, even the extras- in particular the very insightful Behind the Masks feature and the booklet- delight. The staging throughout is full of grand spectacle , with touches like the giant masks and the throne being lowered, and intense drama (the last act in particular is nail-biting and very emotional), complete with some nice wry humour with Ping, Pong and Pang. Nothing is too overblown or too static, which is easy to do with this opera.
From a musical perspective, this production really does score highly. The orchestra are dramatic and sensitive, the intense parts being played with a lot of power and the more intimate and sensitive parts , particularly Liu's music, done with nuance. The chorus play a crucial role in Turandot, having more time on stage than most of the principals, and the chorus here do a smashing job, the intensity they give is almost nerve-shredding and even when they're standing still they deliver still through their faces and body language, they also sound absolutely terrific delivering their often fiendishly hard (especially in Act 1) music. The conducting has plenty of dramatic authority but doesn't forget to be sympathetic towards the performers. The principal performances impress hugely, with the highlights being Lise Lindstrom's Turandot and particularly Eri Nakamura's Liu. Lindstrom makes an imperious and thrillingly icy Royal Opera debut, her voice is steely and large but is also surprisingly attractive too and is certainly not devoid of expression, a danger if this notoriously taxing role is overplayed. Dramatically, Lindstrom commands the stage formidably, Turandot's coldness is always believable which is crucial for making especially Act 2 with the riddles work, not once showing signs of underplaying or being too affable, while her increasing fragility in the last act convinces every bit as much and brings a humanity to the role. Nakamura's Liu is just heart-rending especially in Act 3 (she is already helped this said by her death scene being the most emotion-filled the opera gets), Liu is always the character in Turandot I feel the most for and that is true here. She has a beautiful voice too, gentle and affecting in timbre but never sounding too small or too timid.
Raymond Aceto is a noble, resonant-in-sound and moving Timur, and Ping Pong and Pang steal every scene they appear in,. The characters can be a touch annoying if overdone but here they are wry and sinister, their voices are characterful but thankfully never to the expense of beauty of tone, Ping in particular has a very pleasant voice. Alasdair Elliot's role as the Emperor is small but he makes much of it with a firm stage presence and quite strong voice. Which brings me to Marco Berti as Calaf. As someone who's usually not a fan of Berti or his voice, there was some initial intrepidation, but actually this is one of the better performances I've seen from him. His singing while not exactly musical, here however it wasn't as huge a problem as Calaf is not always that dynamic a role, has more ring and much less bluster and strain than it can do, and while he is a very stand-and-sing actor still and doesn't perhaps fit the 'stereotype' of a romantic hero he is more emotive than usual and is much less oblivious to his colleagues than feared. Not a great performance, but for Berti it is a very fair one. The production ends on an appropriately powerful note.
Overall, an excellent production of Turandot from Royal Opera. 9/10 Bethany Cox
The production looks great, the Oriental detail is so lavishly colourful and grand, the sets have the appropriate atmosphere being foreboding and opulent and the costumes , especially Turandot's and Liu's, are tasteful and suit the setting very well. This is not just in the production values, it looks great on DVD too, apart from a tendency to have too dark a background. Instead of having too many close-ups or being too distant the camera work has the right amount of the cinematic and the intimate, allowing one to take in the action and have an expansive view of it without being too busy or too lingering, and throughout it is always clear who the focus is meant to be on. The picture quality has not an ounce of grain, the sound has great resonance and clarity which allows one to hear all the music's detail and the subtitles are some of the best and more accurate of any opera production DVD seen recently, even the extras- in particular the very insightful Behind the Masks feature and the booklet- delight. The staging throughout is full of grand spectacle , with touches like the giant masks and the throne being lowered, and intense drama (the last act in particular is nail-biting and very emotional), complete with some nice wry humour with Ping, Pong and Pang. Nothing is too overblown or too static, which is easy to do with this opera.
From a musical perspective, this production really does score highly. The orchestra are dramatic and sensitive, the intense parts being played with a lot of power and the more intimate and sensitive parts , particularly Liu's music, done with nuance. The chorus play a crucial role in Turandot, having more time on stage than most of the principals, and the chorus here do a smashing job, the intensity they give is almost nerve-shredding and even when they're standing still they deliver still through their faces and body language, they also sound absolutely terrific delivering their often fiendishly hard (especially in Act 1) music. The conducting has plenty of dramatic authority but doesn't forget to be sympathetic towards the performers. The principal performances impress hugely, with the highlights being Lise Lindstrom's Turandot and particularly Eri Nakamura's Liu. Lindstrom makes an imperious and thrillingly icy Royal Opera debut, her voice is steely and large but is also surprisingly attractive too and is certainly not devoid of expression, a danger if this notoriously taxing role is overplayed. Dramatically, Lindstrom commands the stage formidably, Turandot's coldness is always believable which is crucial for making especially Act 2 with the riddles work, not once showing signs of underplaying or being too affable, while her increasing fragility in the last act convinces every bit as much and brings a humanity to the role. Nakamura's Liu is just heart-rending especially in Act 3 (she is already helped this said by her death scene being the most emotion-filled the opera gets), Liu is always the character in Turandot I feel the most for and that is true here. She has a beautiful voice too, gentle and affecting in timbre but never sounding too small or too timid.
Raymond Aceto is a noble, resonant-in-sound and moving Timur, and Ping Pong and Pang steal every scene they appear in,. The characters can be a touch annoying if overdone but here they are wry and sinister, their voices are characterful but thankfully never to the expense of beauty of tone, Ping in particular has a very pleasant voice. Alasdair Elliot's role as the Emperor is small but he makes much of it with a firm stage presence and quite strong voice. Which brings me to Marco Berti as Calaf. As someone who's usually not a fan of Berti or his voice, there was some initial intrepidation, but actually this is one of the better performances I've seen from him. His singing while not exactly musical, here however it wasn't as huge a problem as Calaf is not always that dynamic a role, has more ring and much less bluster and strain than it can do, and while he is a very stand-and-sing actor still and doesn't perhaps fit the 'stereotype' of a romantic hero he is more emotive than usual and is much less oblivious to his colleagues than feared. Not a great performance, but for Berti it is a very fair one. The production ends on an appropriately powerful note.
Overall, an excellent production of Turandot from Royal Opera. 9/10 Bethany Cox
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