By Giiacomo Puccini by Australian Opera.
At State Theatre until May 10, 1995
This review was published in The Melbourne Times in April 1995
Turandot, the icy Chinese Princess and first self-declared Radical Celibate, has vowed to take her revenge on all men for the abduction, millennia earlier, of her beautiful ancestor. A grudge grandissimo!
The story of Turandot, Puccini's final masterpiece, is man's perennial pursuit of the inaccessible, resistant beauty. Unfinished at the time of his death in 1924, the opera was adapted from the fairy tale by 18th century playwright, Carlo Gozzi.
Puccini's score is both playful and regal. It shifts from heraldic trumpetry and weighty drama of impending execution to the delicate emotional unrequited love aria of Liu'. Carlo Felice Cillario conducts the VSO with grandeur, ease and fluidity.
Ruth Falcon in the title role has a powerful and imposing voice in its upper register but rather stilted acting. As her masochistic suitor, Calaf, Kenneth Collins's tenor is warm and rich but perhaps not sufficiently full-blooded for this demanding role.
It has always been a mystery to me why Calaf marries the nasty baggage, Turandot, instead of the loving, loyal and passionate Liu' but he didn't have the mesmerising Arax Mansourian singing Liu'. In addition to having a haunting, delicate and perfectly controlled voice, she is an exceptional beauty.
John Pringle, Graeme Ewer and Christopher Dawes (Ping, Pang , Pong) cleverly walked the edge of comic-dramatic and Donald Shanks as Calaf's father has a voice with great heart.
John Montgomery's lighting enhances Graham Murphy's dramatic staging and carefully composed stage picture. An uncluttered stage accommodates the enormous, rippling chorus but fills the upper reaches with Kristian Fredrikson's emblematic design of Chinese filagree dragons, Peking Opera masks and a huge, symbolic moon.
The Emperor (Robert Gard) appears as a spectacular 10 metre mountain swathed in golden ottoman. Turandot emerges from beneath his robes, equally impressive and lofty, her initial massive height highlighting her later disempowerment at the hands of Calaf.
This really is a lavish production well worth seeing.
KATE HERBERT
No comments:
Post a Comment