Puccini’s posthumous opera “Turandot”, directed by Bob Wilson and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, is on view at the Opéra-Bastille until December 30;
A new production at the Opéra-Bastille, that of Puccini’s posthumous work, Turandot, served by the staging of Bob Wilson and the assumption of office of the new musical director of the Paris Opera, Gustavo Dudamel, will have received the evening of the premiere a standing ovation, which was addressed first to these two personalities . Less in the distribution, a little behind.
Nobles in black and white C) Charles Duprat, OnP
A spontaneous standing ovation
Everyone standing up, spontaneously. From the last note. It surprised us a bit. But when a standing ovation is so quick, we have to follow, to witness the happiness of the troop and to share it as well. It is true that the energetic and spectacular direction of Gustavo Dudamel (of which it was the beginnings as musical director at the head of a production) as the staging of an inspired Bob Wilson had convinced us. Also because beyond the work of this great master of the theater we had found the simple and pure pleasure too often overused with an aesthetic splendor that made this Turandot a tale whose images will remain in our memory. To begin with, even before the curtain rises, with precisely this curtain, a dazzling red sun on a red background, dazzling too, a remake, if you will, of the White square on white background by Malevich in a sumptuous Asian version.
Timour (Vitali Kowaliow), Calaf (Gwyn Hughes Jones), Liu (Guanqun Yu) C) Charles Duprat, Paris Opera
An orchestral evolution
Turandot, the posthumous opera. Of a Puccini already seriously ill, who, at the same time, is aware of creating a work, he says, original and perhaps unique, and, at other times to find that all the music I have written so far seems like a joke and I don’t like it anymore. From a Puccini also who is a composer of his time and the path traveled since Manon Lescaut and Bohemian thirty years earlier is evident, in orchestral sounds, influences, a more assertive differentiation of the orchestra: until then this one, very often, married the line of song, it has, in Turandot, more and more autonomy, including because it is he who gives, very subtly, very intelligently, the oriental touch, Chinese if you will, to the score, the singers remaining in their register, the post- bel canto puccinien, to put it quickly.
Pong (Matthew Newlin), Ping (Alessio Arduini) and Pang (Jinxu Xiahou) C) Charles Duprat, OnP
Another element, through the characters of the minister-advisers, Ping, Pang and Pong, who could belong to the commedia dell’arte: the burlesque, even if it is against a background of darkness (they try to reason with the princes, to to warn them, and it’s a waste of time) A sad burlesque, therefore, but the place, which Puccini gives them, of a bouncy and scintillating trio with a very developed score is also a sign of an evolution of which we will never know where she would have trained the composer.
The frozen princess and love
The plot of Turandot would fit on a metro ticket if it still existed. The cruel Chinese princess Turandot is courted by all the princes of the world to whom she poses three enigmas; if they do not answer, they have gone to the edge of the sword. This is still the case today when Calaf, prince of Tartary, who came incognito to Beijing, finds his father, the fallen king Timour, accompanied by Liu, the faithful slave. Calaf falls in love with Turandot and, despite warnings from ministers Ping, Pang and Pong, decides to confront him. He does so and finds all 3 puzzles, including the last one: What is the ice that ignites you but becomes even colder in front of your flame ?, the answer being Turandot herself. Turandot then begs her father, the emperor, not to deliver her to Calaf. This offers another challenge: Find out my name before dawn and I will die. Otherwise, you will be mine. In the entourage of Turandot we understood that Timur and Liu know the enigma. Liu then sacrifices himself, says he knows the truth but thrusts a dagger to keep it a secret. In the name of love? she adds, exhaling. Turandot, won in her turn by love, will give herself to Calaf.
The Curse of Turandot C) Charles Duprat, Opéra national de Paris
Toscanini puts down his baguette …
It is a short story by Carlo Gozzi, Goldoni’s rival, and very well known in Venice and throughout Italy. Busoni had already made an opera out of it. Death will prevent Puccini from solving this inconsistency of the libretto where the sacrifice of Liu, Calaf’s secret lover, does not seem to pose any moral problem for him. Turandot is defeated … by love, without her crimes ever being atoned for. We forgive the musician, these are the conventions of opera, but they have a little good back. We also know the anecdote of the creation, where Toscanini (it was at La Scala in Milan on April 25, 1926) put his wand down after the aria which precedes Liu’s sacrifice, declaring in heavy silence: This is where the maestro died. Beautiful dramatic effect, whereas Franco Alfano, already recognized composer, had, at the request of Toscanini himself, completed the work with the surrender of Turandot and the triumph of Calaf!
Sumptuous images and beautiful ideas
This is how it is played now. And Turandot looks good on Bob Wilson’s complexion. In this search for elsewhere where China, a dreamed China, is also that of the theater no, with its stylized gestures, its chalky make-up, its sumptuous costumes (the dignitaries passing by, Turandot’s outfits, dazzling red of her dress and spiderweb) and lights as always admirable, this moonlight through the blue-gray clouds: by escaping realism, by also bringing together the two great powers of Asia, the work resonates like a distant parable, whose codes are not ours; and that makes the fate of the beautiful character of Liu (it is he who has humanity, the breath of passion, not Turandot) less cruel.
Calaf (Gwyn Hughes Jones) and Liu (Guanqun Yu) C) Charles Duprat, OnP
But Wilson (with her co-director Nicola Panzer) also comes up with wonderful detail ideas, though at first the sets that intersect from left to right as if they were out of order as the people move forward and backward end. by making us seasick: the characters -Timur, Calaf, Liu- remain motionless, faces frozen, uncertain, petrified perhaps by the environment, and it is very beautiful, very true. A beautiful idea, too, is the appearance of Turandot, a terrible figure, on a sort of silver diving board where she dominates the people but at the risk of a fatal fall. Ping, Pang and Pong, raise their arms like string puppets, well differentiated as they are, first of all by their physique, the dark baritone Ping of the Italian Alessio Arduini, the hilarious Pang of the Chinese tenor Jinxu Xiahou, the A little cartoonish pong (but wanted by Wilson) of the American tenor Matthew Newlin.
Moving Liu, Calaf too withdrawn
Finally, Liu’s death, in its very simplicity, rests on an admirable idea. The Chinese soprano Guanqun Yu does not have a very sonorous voice and the stage fright made him trip over one or two notes but the tone is very pretty, the discreet emotion of his Liu touches us deeply, a Liu of which she is, beautiful idea, a kind of Christian martyrdom which distills its air, You che di gel sei cinta, with a growing mystical exaltation, where the love of a man, however, replaces the love of God.
Ping, Pang and Pong, Calaf, Liu, Timour, the moonlight C) Charles Duprat, Opéra national de Paris
In Turandot Elena Pankratova is the character. It also has the power in the midrange and easy highs but the higher notes are shouted and the vocal line is not always clear. Gwyn Hughes Jones focuses her Calaf on the famous Nessun Dorma that he succeeds rather well (but the low frequencies of the second sentence are inaudible): this Welshman makes a credible Chinese, the tenor highs are there but he too often struggles to pass into other registers beyond the ‘orchestra. Very honest Timur from Vitali Kowaliow. Very deserving Emperor of Carlo Bosi who sings, suspended in the sky. The choirs have a good time, in their beautiful costumes, they have to be vigilant about the shifts …
The Hanging Emperor (Carlo Bosi) C) Charles Duprat, Opéra national de Paris
Powerful direction of Dudamel
Finally Gustavo Dudamel, who will be criticized for covering the singers too often, obtains from the orchestra of the Opera a power and a fluidity which often transform the score into magnificent film music, which it could be. . But he does better: discreet in Chinese influences, he builds bridges to American music which was beginning to take off; or to a Prokofiev, Puccini’s unexpected companion in the first act where one sometimes fancies hearing the Scythian suite from the Russian or his first piano concertos.
The great Turandots: Birgit Nilsson or Joan Sutherland. The great Calaf: Pavarotti or Corelli. The most beautiful Liu: all the Italians, Scotto, Freni, Ricciarelli. In the public, some, maliciously, referred to these names. This did not prevent the standing ovation, which proves that an opera can hold on to a conductor and a director. If the singers take to heart to be just a little worse than these references …
Turandot by Giacomo Puccini, directed by Bob Wilson (and Nicola Panzer), musical direction by Gustavo Dudamel. Opéra-Bastille until December 30.