Metropolitan Opera Archives

Turandot received nineteen performances this season.

FUNDING:
Revival a gift of the Sybil B. Harrington Trust

Review 1:

Review of Anne Midgette in The New York Times
A Zeffirelli Spectacle, Back for Another Eyeful

When it opened in 1987, Franco Zeffirelli's "Turandot," which returned to the Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday evening, seemed a veritable symbol of operatic excess. This show is spectacle incarnate, Cecil B. De Millie meets P. T. Barnum, with monumental sets and glitter, acrobats, a magnificent Chinese dragon and a large, ragged chorus, forced down to the lip of the orchestra pit by the sets (which, with their risers, steps and Pagodas, offer the masses little actual room to stand) and by the cruel minions of the princess Turandot.

In the midst of all this stands Turandot herself, the archetypal ice princess, shrouded in voluminous costumes and topped with fierce, encrusted headdresses. Puccini's Turandot doesn't even sing until Act II, when she comes out and blasts a huge aria, "In questa reggia," in the face of Prince Calaf, the last in a string of thus-far hapless suitors.

Andrea Gruber delivered this big showpiece with a firm, cool soprano that seemed slightly thin through a lack of warmth. This coldness was, it emerged, a fine piece of vocal acting.

When Calaf quickly pierced Turandot's defenses by answering her three riddles, the princess was left vulnerable, divested of her crown, clearly attracted to Calaf and as clearly terrified of him, and singing with sensitivity and yes, warmth as she went through all of these changes. Her final declaration that Calaf's name is love was given on a gentle mezzo-piano rather than a ringing, triumphant forte. Soon singing her way past the wobble that appeared at the beginning of her first aria, Ms. Gruber gave a careful and delicate portrait.

Helping to melt the ice of Ms. Gruber's Turandot was the radiance of Hei-Kyung Hong as the slave girl Liu. Ms. Hong was simply gorgeous. Her voice arced over the crowd or soared in floating pianos, and every word and gesture was clear. In her poignant death scene, between her monologue and Turandot's reactions the circus suddenly gave way to a delicate piece of drama.

Vladimir Galouzine's Calaf was somewhat more routine. Mr. Galouzine sang with a foggy tenor, a solid voice that reflected the effects of murky Russian vowels in its lack of brilliance; he improved a great deal in the third act, removing some of the patina from the instrument to reveal a bronzy glow. Hao Jiang Tian was an adequate Timur, if not an especially affecting one. Carlo Rizzi, the conductor, generally kept things moving in both senses of the word, riding over the occasional sour tone from the orchestra.

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