ROH Turandot - in the cinema

[Barbirollians]

Anyone seen this widely praised Turandot ? At the cinema now for the live relay .

[pastoralguy]

I was very tempted to go tonite but I’ve got a nasty chest infection and didn’t want to cough and splutter through it! One of my favourite operas to play.

[Belgrove]

It’s a very effective production which I saw years ago - as sumptuous and opulent as the score calls for and definitely worth experiencing for the sheer spectacle. I doubt that such a production would be mounted today. Pappano’s Puccini is probably his strongest point.

I listened to the recent Pappano recording which is rather good (except for using the concert version of Nessun Dorma rather than the attacca climax used in the opera). Kaufmann and Jaho are pretty much ideal as Calaf and Liu.

[LHC]

I’m going on Saturday.

[Simon B]

I went on 15th March.

It was one of those odd experiences which others may have had from time-to-time: Where you're aware of being at an excellent performance of a favourite work in a coherent production but are left inexplicably stone cold.

Turandot was my first live opera - or at least the first I went to of my own volition and can remember anything about from 30-odd years ago. The music and orchestration made a huge impact on me back then. Literally so in the confined acoustic of a smaller provincial theatre. This was in a time when regional companies still had the budget to stage things like this occasionally with such a large orchestra just about jammed into the pit.

Maybe I've just grown out of it? It doesn't help that almost all the principal roles are one-dimensional, mostly rather unsympathetic and don't develop. I've also never noticed before just how repetitious the music is compared with most of the rest of Puccini's output. Nor had I been consciously aware how much of it is obviously second-pressings of borrowings or pastiche - I was usually too busy being swept along by the sheer can-belto heft of it all.

That said I thoroughly enjoyed Opera North's semi-staging about five years ago, so it's all a bit of an enigma. Just in the wrong mood for all that din perhaps?

In the light of Pappano's recent recording I really wish he had got ROH to do the original Alfano ending rather than Toscanini's butcher job. Even with the butchering, I actually found it the most enjoyable part last week. Yes, it's indulgent and over-the-top but surely that's the point? The original Alfano is several degrees further OTT and just the job for ending what is surely the most spectacular and noisy opera in the standard rep. You might as well chuck all the offstage brass and tam-tam rolls you can muster at it while the Turandot ruptures her eyeballs trying to be heard through it all. The Berio completion is much more sophisticated and interesting as music but would be a complete non-starter for a satisfying conclusion to a theatrical presentation in my opinion. Far too subtle...

I got a ticket for another performance with the other cast at the outset so will be giving it another go. Second time lucky perhaps?

[Barbirollians]

I went on 15th March.

It was one of those odd experiences which others may have had from time-to-time: Where you're aware of being at an excellent performance of a favourite work in a coherent production but are left inexplicably stone cold.

Turandot was my first live opera - or at least the first I went to of my own volition and can remember anything about from 30-odd years ago. The music and orchestration made a huge impact on me back then. Literally so in the confined acoustic of a smaller provincial theatre. This was in a time when regional companies still had the budget to stage things like this occasionally with such a large orchestra just about jammed into the pit.

Maybe I've just grown out of it? It doesn't help that almost all the principal roles are one-dimensional, mostly rather unsympathetic and don't develop. I've also never noticed before just how repetitious the music is compared with most of the rest of Puccini's output. Nor had I been consciously aware how much of it is obviously second-pressings of borrowings or pastiche - I was usually too busy being swept along by the sheer can-belto heft of it all.

That said I thoroughly enjoyed Opera North's semi-staging about five years ago, so it's all a bit of an enigma. Just in the wrong mood for all that din perhaps?

In the light of Pappano's recent recording I really wish he had got ROH to do the original Alfano ending rather than Toscanini's butcher job. Even with the butchering, I actually found it the most enjoyable part last week. Yes, it's indulgent and over-the-top but surely that's the point? The original Alfano is several degrees further OTT and just the job for ending what is surely the most spectacular and noisy opera in the standard rep. You might as well chuck all the offstage brass and tam-tam rolls you can muster at it while the Turandot ruptures her eyeballs trying to be heard through it all. The Berio completion is much more sophisticated and interesting as music but would be a complete non-starter for a satisfying conclusion to a theatrical presentation in my opinion. Far too subtle...

I got a ticket for another performance with the other cast at the outset so will be giving it another go. Second time lucky perhaps?

I enjoyed it though as impressively powerful as Pierretti and Lee were , the Nessus Dorma was a bit charmless and star of the show was very much the young South African soprano Masebane Cecilia Rangwanasha as Liu - Jaho takes that role over for most of the rest of the run .

[Ein Heldenleben]

I went on 15th March.

It was one of those odd experiences which others may have had from time-to-time: Where you're aware of being at an excellent performance of a favourite work in a coherent production but are left inexplicably stone cold.

Turandot was my first live opera - or at least the first I went to of my own volition and can remember anything about from 30-odd years ago. The music and orchestration made a huge impact on me back then. Literally so in the confined acoustic of a smaller provincial theatre. This was in a time when regional companies still had the budget to stage things like this occasionally with such a large orchestra just about jammed into the pit.

Maybe I've just grown out of it? It doesn't help that almost all the principal roles are one-dimensional, mostly rather unsympathetic and don't develop. I've also never noticed before just how repetitious the music is compared with most of the rest of Puccini's output. Nor had I been consciously aware how much of it is obviously second-pressings of borrowings or pastiche - I was usually too busy being swept along by the sheer can-belto heft of it all.

That said I thoroughly enjoyed Opera North's semi-staging about five years ago, so it's all a bit of an enigma. Just in the wrong mood for all that din perhaps?

In the light of Pappano's recent recording I really wish he had got ROH to do the original Alfano ending rather than Toscanini's butcher job. Even with the butchering, I actually found it the most enjoyable part last week. Yes, it's indulgent and over-the-top but surely that's the point? The original Alfano is several degrees further OTT and just the job for ending what is surely the most spectacular and noisy opera in the standard rep. You might as well chuck all the offstage brass and tam-tam rolls you can muster at it while the Turandot ruptures her eyeballs trying to be heard through it all. The Berio completion is much more sophisticated and interesting as music but would be a complete non-starter for a satisfying conclusion to a theatrical presentation in my opinion. Far too subtle...

I got a ticket for another performance with the other cast at the outset so will be giving it another go. Second time lucky perhaps?

I’m with you. Turandot leaves me cold. I saw the Serban production in 1986 with Franco Bonisolli (excellent) and Gwyneth Jones (loud and swooping around the note ) and have never gone back . A superb production but Puccini’s opera has no heart emotionally or musically with the exception of Liu’s ‘Signor Ascolta’ . The great Puccini operas are Boheme and Butterfly with an honourable mention for Fanciulla Del West and La Rondine. I also think Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicci are masterpieces . The Michele / Guiletta in Il Tabarro duet is so much better than the equivalent in Turandot. That said I do like the Mehta highlights album with Sutherland and Pavarotti but as far as they are concerned I could hear them singing the London telephone directory to Andrew Lord Webber’s tunes and be relatively happy. Their singing in Turandot carries its weaknesses. Oh to have such voices now….

[Master Jacques]

I listened to the recent Pappano recording which is rather good (except for using the concert version of Nessun Dorma rather than the attacca climax used in the opera). Kaufmann and Jaho are pretty much ideal as Calaf and Liu.

"Rather good" sums it up for me, too. But not, alas, good enough to approach classic status. I found Kaufmann miscast as Calaf, and he sentimentalises the hard edge of the role: in particular his portamenti in 'Non piangere, Liu' are cheap and vulgar, for such an intelligent singer. Jaho sounds thin, wavery and past her best to my ears, doing little with the text; and the Turandot left no impression at all. I enjoyed Michael Spyres' Emperor, though! Like other posters, I suspect my Turandot years (which began aged 13 when I asked my grandma to buy me the Nilsson/Corelli/Scotto set under Molinari Pradelli for Christmas, which she obediently did) are behind me, but this one failed to set my blood coursing at all.

[alywin]

star of the show was very much the young South African soprano Masebane Cecilia Rangwanasha as Liu

Yes, she's quite something - did you see her in the Royal Opera livestreams during the pandemic?

I’m with you. Turandot leaves me cold. I saw the Serban production in 1986 with Franco Bonisolli (excellent) and Gwyneth Jones (loud and swooping around the note ) and have never gone back . A superb production but Puccini’s opera has no heart emotionally or musically with the exception of Liu’s ‘Signor Ascolta’ .

Me too. I saw the Serban production, probably last century, and decided that Calaf and Turandot were a couple of self-absorbed $%"£$%^ and were welcome to each other. However, given the ROH's recent travails, I'm pleased to see that this production, at least, has sold out. I'd barely noticed it was on, which is probably my own fault, as I did pick up the ROH cinema flyer the last time I was in the cinema.

[Barbirollians]

Yes, she's quite something - did you see her in the Royal Opera livestreams during the pandemic?


Me too. I saw the Serban production, probably last century, and decided that Calaf and Turandot were a couple of self-absorbed $%"£$%^ and were welcome to each other. However, given the ROH's recent travails, I'm pleased to see that this production, at least, has sold out. I'd barely noticed it was on, which is probably my own fault, as I did pick up the ROH cinema flyer the last time I was in the cinema.

No I didn’t . She was certainly the star of the show . Yes, the production underlined what a nasty pair they are.

[Dave2002]

No I didn’t . She was certainly the star of the show . Yes, the production underlined what a nasty pair they are.

Agree about Liu.

Not at all sure about the whole thing - is there a moral of any sort in it? Pondering over the nastiness of the characters involved. Why anyone would want to take on Turandot (character) I can't imagine. Is it about redemption - in any way? Probably not - just yet another nonsense opera plot!

The sound levels went crazy in Act 3, with the solo voices far too loud.

[Barbirollians]

Agree about Liu.

Not at all sure about the whole thing - is there a moral of any sort in it? Pondering over the nastiness of the characters involved. Why anyone would want to take on Turandot (character) I can't imagine. Is it about redemption - in any way? Probably not - just yet another nonsense opera plot!

The sound levels went crazy in Act 3, with the solo voices far too loud.

Maybe that was the cinema you were watching in Dave - I did not notice that at all where I watched it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Agree about Liu.

Not at all sure about the whole thing - is there a moral of any sort in it? Pondering over the nastiness of the characters involved. Why anyone would want to take on Turandot (character) I can't imagine. Is it about redemption - in any way? Probably not - just yet another nonsense opera plot!

The sound levels went crazy in Act 3, with the solo voices far too loud.

Funny you should say that. I’ve been going to the Met relays at Cineworld. They have been technically very poor. At the last one the sound was a bit too loud in Act 1 (Lohiengrin) . Then far too quiet in Act 2. It emerged that some one had asked for it to be turned down. They turned it up again and it was again slightly too loud . It then emerged that the amplification system in the cinema works in a series of steps and those were the only two viable volume options other than very very quiet and very loud. They also told me that on general showings there’s a similar system and disagreement within the audience over sound levels.

The ROH performances has been (locally ) at Vue cinemas where they tend have better amplification.

The Met sound was also very compressed in the cinema. At home in Radio 3 it sounded fine - more compressed than an R3 ROH relay though.

The sound emerging in the auditorium will go through so much amplification and processing before relay in your cinema I suspect the problem isn’t the Royal Opera’s.

[Master Jacques]

Not at all sure about the whole thing - is there a moral of any sort in it? Pondering over the nastiness of the characters involved. Why anyone would want to take on Turandot (character) I can't imagine. Is it about redemption - in any way? Probably not - just yet another nonsense opera plot!

Personally I don't worry about the unlikeable quality of the main characters in this, or indeed any other opera. We wouldn't get very far with Poppea, Tosca. Boris Godunov or quite a few other staples of the repertoire if we took a moral stance towards their protagonists!

It's mythic opera, which is the best sort after all, and gives us representative archetypes rather than social realist stereotypes. We all have a bit of the Calaf in us, just as we all have to deal with our inner Turandot and try to manage them both. So for me, the libretto - firmly based on Gozzi's old play, which also attracted Weber, Busoni, and even 'Havergo' Brian - is splendidly organised, with the characters of the three Masques, cynical-expressionist in Act 1 and touchingly human in Act 2, being a special success. Nonsense? Surely not!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Personally I don't worry about the unlikeable quality of the main characters in this, or indeed any other opera. We wouldn't get very far with Poppea, Tosca. Boris Godunov or quite a few other staples of the repertoire if we took a moral stance towards their protagonists!

It's mythic opera, which is the best sort after all, and gives us representative archetypes rather than social realist stereotypes. We all have a bit of the Calaf in us, just as we all have to deal with our inner Turandot and try to manage them both. So for me, the libretto - firmly based on Gozzi's old play, which also attracted Weber, Busoni, and even 'Havergo' Brian - is splendidly organised, with the characters of the three Masques, cynical-expressionist in Act 1 and touchingly human in Act 2, being a special success. Nonsense? Surely not!

Yes but Scarpia and Boris get their comeuppance. There is a sense of moral outrage that Turandot can have a innocent tortured and men killed and yet still get the hero at the end. Calaf is a paper thin character isn’t he ? The real problem though is that for all the magnificence of Turandot’s vocal outpourings there’s a kind of musical emptiness , almost cynicism , in there in a way that there isn’t with Mimi, Tosca , and Cio-Cio San. The slightly creepy sadistic side of Puccini ( also seen in Act 2 Tosca ) for me isn’t counteracted by the quality of the music.

Whether I have an inner Turandot rather than an inner Siegfried I leave for others to judge but I’m very glad I managed to marry some one without a scintilla of the former!