You can imagine the planning meeting some time ago; World Cup fever will be rife in the land – well at least until England are knocked out – theatres around the land will face rows of empty seats, so what can we at Covent Garden do? Well of course the answer was clear – revive Turandot for reasons that need not be elaborated on, though circumstances mean I must.

The opening night of this current run of ten performances was 7 July and on such a significant date it became not a sad reflection of the events one year earlier but a celebration of the work of the Royal Opera as through simultaneous broadcasts on 12 screens throughout the country the extended audience was encouraged to sing-along with ‘Nessun Dorma’. To bring out the best in them Stephen Westrop, assistant chorus master, was out in the Covent Garden Piazza entreating the participants to ‘breathe’ as for ten minutes or so he tried to teach everyone this most famous aria to accompany 3 tenors (Elliot Goldie, Luke Price and Andrew Sinclair). Maybe they had drawn the Royal Opera’s short straw because they were willing but weak: I realised myself long ago that no one would ever enjoy hearing me sing but I had fun joining in anyway!

Back in the opera house I was in familiar territory, for this was a staging I had been following on and off since it first appeared at Covent Garden in September 1984. Reviewing appears to be increasingly a solitary experience so there are many opportunities to overhear the comments of other members of the public. These included ‘Is Puccini dead?’, how the Ping-Pang-Pong scene is ‘Puccini’s idea of a pub quiz’ and also how ‘For most operas I like to leave before the last act and this is one of them’. More importantly some people didn’t think the principals were doing (i.e. acting) very much. It seems twenty-first century opera audiences need to be placated with something going on all the time. Here apart from some processions and some ceremonial dancers very little does indeed happen: Calaf, Turandot, Liù and Timur just walked on, off and around each other as appropriate. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great opera but these stock characters are rather one-dimensional; so this is perhaps the problem Puccini had in finishing it and not even Plácido Domingo or Gwyneth Jones made anything of them in 1984, so I understand, and nor did Ernesto Veronelli or Ghena Dimitrova whom I saw. How I missed the eccentric Franco Bonisolli’s full frontal assault on his Turandot in Act III from subsequent performances but that and the interpolated top Cs he put in all over the place was typical of him.

To digress a bit I must add that I have a little reflected historical connection with this opera as I knew Dame Eva Turner, one of the first Turandots (or Turandohs as she pronounced it) and Dame Gwyneth Jones, and often they talked about the demands of this fiendishly difficult role. Dame Eva was at the première of this opera in 1926 and first sang the role barely a few months later. She reminisced once how the Maestro at La Scala said to her when she sang Turandot there ‘Signorina I will give you the note after the “Straniero ascolta” ‘ (this is when Turandot has to find the pitch for ‘nella cupa notte’ in the first riddle). ‘Give me the note?!’ she replied ‘If anyone has to give me the note, I’d be better off as a laundry woman. Indeed they used to have an instrument, a sort of pipe, which could give the requisite note and I am glad I never needed it’.

Andrei Serban’s production in designs by Sally Jacobs was restaged by Royal Opera staffer Jeremy Sutcliffe and it returned in a remarkably fresh state. In 1984 much of the mise en scène was less familiar than it is now from Chinese New Year celebrations, travel documentaries and films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers. So coming back to this production after a few years how was it for me?

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, which I found particularly significant for the restraint shown by all concerned, whether it was orchestral playing, singing or acting. I have read a derogatory comment that the Hungarian conductor Stefan Soltesz is ‘apparently a big name in Essen’ as though he was unworthy of the assignment. He is also ‘big’ at the Vienna State Opera (conducting several times next season, including Peter Grimes and Ariadne auf Naxos) – Vienna is somewhere that really knows its opera! He seemed to respect the score and whilst in other hands the conducting could be slapdash and broad with every climax emphasised, here it seemed much better with many surprising chamber-like moments, and I heard harp and solo string lines that I appear to have missed before. This approach brought into sharp focus where Puccini’s invention ‘died’ and Alfano/Toscanini took over to complete the last pages, musically as quickly as possible however dramatically implausible it all is. From the pathos of the aftermath of Liù’s sacrifice for her beloved Calaf it is crash, bang, wallop downhill all the way to the grand explosion of the triumph of love chorale at the end. There was a very high standard of singing throughout and this included the chorus, who are on top form under the chorus director Renato Balsadonna.

Very much like the Herald in Lohengrin, the Mandarin in Turandot can set the tone for the whole evening. Here Eddie Wade’s stentorian baritone made everyone sit up and listen: he was supported amongst the minor roles by Francis Egerton’s venerable sounding Emperor Altoum in the final role of his 35 year Royal Opera career. Jorge Lagunes, another veteran, Robin Leggate and Alasdair Elliott made up an energetic Ping-Pang-Pong trio. The veteran bass Robert Lloyd was the original Timur when the production was premièred in Los Angeles in July 1984. Ben Heppner recounts that Robert Lloyd said to him recently: ‘There seemed something missing. People weren’t sure it was going to be a success. Then they added smoke at the very last minute at the dress rehearsal, and it just changed everything – all of a sudden it had mystery – and these red silks and the smoke completed the atmosphere.’ Atmosphere it still has, and Robert Lloyd remains a potent dignified presence 22 years later.

The role of Liù, for any moderately accomplished soprano is something that cannot fail given her two heart-wrenching arias. Less fragile than some, Elena Kelessidi did not disappoint.

For both Ben Heppner and Georgina Lukács singing their roles of Calaf and Turandot is not commonplace. Mr Heppner has not sung his part on stage for ten years and Miss Lukács only made her role debut earlier this season in Palermo. She had a vibrant, laser-like dramatic soprano voice, totally wobble-free, loud but not too loud. Also from Hungary, she seemed more confident and relaxed in her performance than many and this allowed her to participate in the story more than some of her more ‘statuesque’ colleagues, past and present.

Ben Heppner was the revelation of the evening for me, and I don’t think the audience gave him the ovation he deserved. His vocal range seems astonishing, as on the eve of singing Tristan and Siegfried here he was Calaf, one of the definitive roles of the verismo Italian repertory. There was never an ugly sound, there were some gloriously rolled Rs in his precise and eloquent use of language and his top Cs were effortless. I think it was this lack of effort or any display of vocal histrionics and his discreet and supportive stage persona that somehow counted against Mr Heppner at the end of the performance. For those of us in the know it was a major triumph of stylish heroic tenor singing.

 

Jim Pritchard