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Puccini, Turandot: Soloists, Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi. Coro de Ópera de Bilbao, Conductor: Antonello Allemandi, Palacio Euskalduna de Bilbao. 17.5.2008. (JMI)

Cast:

Turandot: Miriam Murphy
Calaf: Kyu Sung Park
Liú: Beatriz Díaz
Timur: Deyan Vatchkov


This performance of Turandot was the second cast, sung by young promising newcomers,  of the Bilbao production reported last Friday. The Bilbao Opera Friends Association began  last year to  offer extra performances of  some titles in its programme sung entirely by  young people, with the idea of attracting a wider new public to the opera house with cheaper seat prices. A complete cast of youngsters in Turandot is difficult of course, since Turandot and Calaf are not roles to be performed by singers beginning  their careers, but there is no question that the title was specially attractive for the non-opera going public and  the larger Euskalduna Palace attracted a full house with many and unusual number of young people in it. Clearly this is both a smart financial move and particularly important idea for the future of the opera.

The only changes in the cast were in the three principal roles; all the rest were retained from the first team. The new Turandot was Irish soprano Miriam Murphy, winner of the Wagner competiition in Seattle in 2006. Her voice has an attractive and important middle register, worthy of a dramatic soprano, and she has a good sound down in the lower reaches Unfortunately her high notes are not of the same quality, too metallic and not terribly pleasant much of the time. I think she will  have a better future in the German repertoire, since in Italian opera she is not too helped by her poor deficient Italian diction. Considering the huge difficulties of this role however, she was a more than decent Princess.

Korean Kyu Sung Park was a weak Calaf, as it is sadly more than normal these days. He is  a kind of lyric tenor with a  poorly projected ^centre, and was difficult to hear in the hurricane of sound that ^Antonello Allemandi offered yet again. As normally happens with people used to song contests, he was more confident in Nessu Dorma than in the rest of the opera. Despite his age, he is not too comfortable in the high register, dodging the high C, and offering   high B that was too open at the end of his aria. This  almost stopped  the show however, proving that the different kind of audience can be extremely appreciative of opera, even when by the highest standards it was below par. I liked it. 

Beatriz Díaz, the last winner of the Viñas song competition, also had a great  success as Liú. She is an interesting and sensitive artist, although I do believe she is rather too light for the part as yet. Her middle register is small she there she sounds like a light soprano of little vocal interest. Her high register is much better however, and there and is really bright and more powerful than her mid-range seems to show. There was no question about her triumph here, but I don’t believe she is in the right repertoire.

As a hardened older opera goer  myself, seeing the reaction of this much younger audience - something that we are unused to in Bilbao -  was a like a pleasant breath  of fresh air in a closed, rather fusty, room.

José M. Irurzun