When the Royal Opera’s current run of Turandot ends in February, there will have been no fewer than 22 performances of Puccini’s unfinished final opera on the Covent Garden stage in less than a year. By opera house standards, that’s a remarkably big number, especially for a staging that is now more than 40 years old.
But it’s not hard to see why this Turandot keeps on returning. Puccini’s darkest, most ritualistic and choral opera is a showstopper shot through with musical colour, innovation and interest. In tough economic times for the art form, it offers guaranteed box office, due in no small part to the iconic tenor aria Nessun Dorma. What’s more, Andrei Serban’s 1984 production is a living theatrical classic, in which everything is played out within oppressive sets inhabited by shadowy watchers. It is confidently revived here by Jack Furness, with eye-catching orientalist choreography by Kate Flatt.
And then, for the four pre-Christmas performances only, there is also Anna Netrebko. Immediately Netrebko’s Turandot starts to sing, which does not happen until midway through the second act, one realises that everything preceding this moment, effective though it may have been in its way, has been run-of-the-mill by comparison. Netrebko’s vocal richness and the grandeur of her phrasing lift things to a different level. There are times in her performance when one is aware of being in the presence of operatic greatness.
Yes, there are occasional caveats about vibrato and attention to text – but then there were plenty of those with Callas and Sutherland too – and when judging Netrebko one is judging in their league. Turandot, unlike many Puccini heroines, is unavoidably a very loud sing. For some very fine Turandots that was always enough. Yet Netrebko brings softness and an extended line too, where Puccini permits, and there is nothing metallic or heartless about her rendering of the great riddle scene around which this opera rotates.
Almost inevitably, the evening’s other principals are eclipsed by Netrebko. Yusif Eyvazov made a stentorian start as Turandot’s suitor Calaf, but by the time he got to Nessun Dorma in the final act, Eyvazov was relying on heft and training rather than lyricism. Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha was a warmly sung Liu, the opera’s victim and the only character whom one cares about. Simone del Savio, Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono and James Kryshak were a lively Ping, Pang and Pong, yet without making the most of the roles, while Rafał Siwek was a dignified Timur. The veteran tenor Raúl Giménez sang the Emperor Altoum. Daniel Oren’s conducting was relentless but unilluminating.
