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OPERA REVIEW
"Turandot," A Visual Delight, Musically Down
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By Marvin Tartak
The San Francisco Opera began its 1998 Season on October 11 with Puccini's final, incomplete opera "Turandot", a crowd pleaser guaranteed to persuade idle minds of opera's fascination. The ace in the hole was the designer: David Hockney. Repeating the look of his 1993 version (opening in Chicago as well as San Francisco), Hockney painted the stage with glowing colors and intense design, a masterful vision which overcomes the eye and stimulates the mind.
Enhancing the power of that vision was the costuming, brilliantly created by Ian Falconer and the lighting, accomplished by the magician of the company, lighting director Thomas J. Munn. Sensitive to the mood of each scene he amplified the effect by shades of light, following changing episodes in the music, subtly, boldly altering colors for each event. The Act I execution was dark red; the Act III happy ending was in glowing red. Check out the hue of the gong central to Act I, fiery red for the angry mob, cool silver for the moon, intense gold when the hero Calaf strikes it at the end. Particularly enchanting is the night scene at the beginning of Act III, the haunting dark blue cut by the piercing orange of a lantern.
From moment to moment, illumination became a clue to feeling and to action. The dilemma of three riddles and their solution, central to the plot in Act II, the imponderable questions, the deliberation of the hero, the triumphant answer -- each dramatic event was shaped by Mr. Munn under the guidance of Mr. Hockney as light faded and grew strong again. One wanted suspense; one got it by the look of the production.
If only the acting and the singing were as accomplished. From the very beginning the musical production was ragged, the usually exemplary chorus sinning in particular. Soloists and chorus were on and off in their rhythmic rapport with the conductor. A charitable outlook chalks this up to the curse of First-Night-Jitters; yet in an evening given to Italian singing, the quality of the voices was below a level of excellence expected at the San Francisco Opera. True, one judges unfairly with recordings, made at greater leisure with care, but still!
The tenor, Richard Margison, came off best; his "Nessun dorma" rang with conviction and power, famously the star aria of the show. Svetla Vassileva, making her debut with the company, was an affecting Lił, as well she should. This invention of Puccini's, the woman-as-pathetic-victim, has the most sympathetic music, and more of it in the shape of solo tune than anyone else's. One weeps for Lił; she has it in her contract. The comics, Ping-Pang-Pong (considered as though they were one character with six frantic legs) were fine--if only they could always be at one with the beat.
Turandot was not well sung. Gabriele Schnaut comes to the role from a diet heavy in Wagner and Richard Strauss. Too much competing with the orchestra for equal space has done her in when it comes to Italian opera. Admittedly the role is fiendish, sitting in a register too high for most mortal women, but the role is basically lyrical, not stentorian. She must frequently sing a melodic recitative without the underlining of the strings,. Her voice was wobbly, continuously forced in a strident forte, and just plain ugly.
Schnaut suits Turandot's character. Turandot is not an attractive woman; she's the Queen of Mean. For most of the opera she keeps this forbidding attitude, and for the most psychologically questionable reasons. In the end, her character conversion into a lover-with-a-heart is one of the more unbelievable plot-lines in Puccini's works. She is so cruel to others for most of the story--who would want her? Yet, all traveling aristocrats desire her and are willing to lose their heads for her. In this production the effect of bad singing, and grotesque makeup that underscores the icy otherworldliness of the Princess, makes the listener reluctantly wish for a palace revolution.
However, Schnaut can "act". Gestures, grimaces, arms outflung in a hard imperial manner (and costumed in vomitous green), she convinces the observer that she's pretty awful. If there is any self-doubt in her character (and she admits there is after the impressive smooch she gets from her soon-to-be husband), none of it shows in her performance.
Indeed, only a consummate singer and actress could rise above her material to convince you Turandot is a human being; for this the blame lies with Puccini and his librettists. [Also blame Franco Alfano, who completed the opera in 1924 after Puccini died. His music accompanying the kiss is given to overkill -- a bass drum plunge at this climactic moment that wakes everybody up.]
The acting of everybody else is perfunctory and basic. In this staging by Garnett Bruce the crowd scenes are well placed, traffic directed, held and released (except at the beginning of Act III: the curtain rises on a band of black-clad Chinese running aimlessly about in a crouching position, unfortunately giving the effect of delayed stagehands awkwardly discovered in flight). However, few of the soloists are asked to rise above the level of pageant, lots of standing around and waiting to sing. Character entrances are so perfunctory as to smell of high school. In the riddle scene Margison acts by the numbers and loses all feeling of uncertainty and excitement. The comics are cute, jumping up and down, prancing around in tiny steps (to indicate what -- bound feet?), but they irritate. In the tiresome scene beginning Act II their antics merely serve to accompany the flow of late opera patrons plowing back to their seats.
What one enjoys is Puccini's music. What tunes! Try and leave the opera without having them in one's head. Marco Armiliato, of late the company's house conductor for Puccini, ably, effectively drives the orchestra (tense on opening night). Perhaps there could be more excitement in this driving, sharpening an edge that keeps the audience in rapt attention, wondering what will happen next. But then, perhaps Opening Night could be sold at reasonable priced tickets, and people in ordinary dress could flood the theater.
Don't hold your breath.
(Marvin Tartak, who twice worked as a rehearsal pianist with the S. F. Opera [1973 and 1983], teaches a course in Opera at City College of San Francisco. He has written program notes for the San Francisco Symphony and Opera, has also has edited two volumes of Rossini for the Fondazione Rossini, and is soon to embark on a third.)
©1998 Marvin Tartak, all rights reserved
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