Berio's Brilliant Solution to the Turandot Riddle

By Truman C. Wang
Tuesday, June 4, 2002

TURANDOT

Opera in Three Acts by
Giacomo Puccini
New Ending composed by
LUCIANO BERIO
Sung in Italian with English titles

Kent Nagano, conductor
Gian-Carlo Del Monaco, director
Michael Scott, designer
William Vendice, chorus master

Performance of Tuesday, June 4, 2002 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

All photos by ROBERT MILLARD, courtesy of Los Angeles Opera

LOS ANGELES, CALIF -- The 2001-2002 season of the Los Angeles Opera ended with a world premiere of sorts.  Puccini’s Turandot, left unfinished by the composer’s untimely death from throat cancer in 1924, received a newly orchestrated ending by Luciano Berio in January 2002, and saw its first staging of the new Finale in Los Angeles this month.  While one may argue about the new Finale’s merits or demerits, there can be no doubt about the sheer vocal thrills delivered by the fine international cast, led by the incomparable Liu of Korean soprano Hei-Kyung Hong.

Turandot tells the story of Calaf who comes to Peking to vie for the hand of Turandot, the emperor’s daughter.  Known to many as an “ice princess,” Turandot has already sent more than two dozen princely suitors to the beheading block as her way of avenging a wronged female ancestor.  Against all advice, Calaf accepts Turandot’s challenge of answering three riddles that could either earn him death or Turandot’s hand and the imperial throne of China.  Ultimately, love conquers all in this story about bravery and wisdom.

The well-known Finale by Franco Alfano has often been derided for its loud, crude, bombastic chords and heavy-handed orchestration that are contrary to Puccini’s original intentions.  The recent unearthing of Puccini’s 20 additional sketches further discredited Alfano’s work, and served as an impetus for Berio’s new attempt at solving the ultimate Turandot Riddle; i.e., how to end the opera as the composer had wished – softly and quietly – without making it sound like an anticlimax.

Many may wince at the thought of commissioning an avant-garde modernist to finish the work of a late Romantic melodist.  The result, far from sounding incongruous or inartistic, is in my opinion nothing short of brilliant.  Side by side, the two Finales resemble only in the vocal contour of the Calaf-Turandot Duet.  The Berio version, with its subtle harmonic shifts, tonal ambiguities, and exotic scoring, sounds more akin to Puccini’s vision, despite the nearly 80 years of stylistic chasm separating the two.  The constantly shifting major and minor harmonies and hints of atonality not only are in keeping with the rest of the score that Puccini did write, but also nicely mirror the emotional turmoil of the newly de-iced, humanized Princess.  Moreover, the reprise of a big aria “Nessun dorma” (transfigured harmonically), absent in the Alfano version, has ample precedents in other Puccini operas, notably “E lucevan le stelle” at the end of Tosca.

Audrey Stottler as Turandot,      Franco Farina as Calaf and      Hei-Kyung Hong as Liu in the      Act Three Finale	Franco Farina as Calaf and      Audrey Stottler as Turandot      in the Act Three Finale

The only gripe I have about the Finale is its staging, which all but ignores the libretto that, unlike the music, was completed at Puccini’s death.  In the libretto, as Turandot and the Prince are left alone on the stage, the stranger tears away her veil and kisses her passionately (he kisses the lifeless body of Liu in this production).  The production design by Michael Scott is stupefyingly uninspiring, with a darkly-lit Imperial Palace (‘Imperial Cave’?) and two huge columns that blocked the view of Turandot during her big aria “In questa Reggia” for 75 percent of the audience.  Which is just as well, since this Turandot is probably the worst clothed Princess who ever set food on stage.  The stage direction by Gian-Carlo Del Monaco was pedestrian at best and the choristers neither looked nor sounded “barbaro”, as indicated in the libretto.  Why the Met had fired him was probably not too hard to speculate.

In his final masterpiece, Puccini broke new ground with the rich and varied coloring of the orchestral palette (Chinese gong, side drums, piccolo, xylophone, saxophone), even created a “Turandot chord” that is heard again and again in the course of the opera.  Conuctor Kent Nagano was happier with the lyricism (e.g. the seductive mini-ballet in Act III) of the opera than with its tension and brutality.  There was no excitement or ‘lift’, for example, in the passage leading to front of the Imperial Palace in Act II.  Nor did Maestro Nagano bring out the timpani and side drum so essential in the Turandot’s maids’ call for silence in Act I.  He did, however, prove to be a most sympathetic accompanist, allowing his singers plenty of room to breathe and phrase their individual numbers – a skill no doubt acquired during his years with Opera Lyon.

And how they sang!  Audrey Stottler’s steely voice had power and stamina to spare in Turandot’s entrance aria “In questa Reggia”, in which the Princess explains the reason for the Three Riddles and why she hates men.   Ms. Stottler nicely fined down her voice to a velvet during the passage about Turandot’s doomed ancestor, Princess Luo-Ling, to reveal her feminine inner softness.  Tenor Franco Farina sang Calaf with the stentorian tone of a fearless warrior and the nobility of a prince.  Tenors Alfredo Daza, Greg Fedderly, and Bruce Sledge as Ping, Pang, and Pong, respectively – a vestige of commedia dell’arte – sang and acted their nostalgia with a touching sweetness.  Bass Rosendo Flores’ Timur was a frail but expressive old King of Tartary.  In my first experience ever, Joseph Frank’s Emperor Altoum sounded younger than the old King Timur (about age 39), thanks to the ill-advised amplification that is more and more prevalent in opera houses these days.  Let’s leave the microphones and power amps to Broadway and sports stadiums only, okay?

Despite all the brouhaha surrounding the new Finale, the star of the evening was really the Liu of soprano Hei-Kyung Hong, who effectively demonstrated that opera is fundamentally about the art of singing.  In her two poignantly sung arias, “Signore ascolta” and “Tu che di gel sei cinta”, Ms. Hong offered an object lesson on legato singing and stylish phrasing that made the last of Puccini’s Little Girls seem almost heroic.  No one today in my experience sings this role better.

A great evening of opera-as-theatre?  Not quite.  Opera-as-great-singing?  Absolutely.

Two cheers for Ms. Hong and Maestro Berio.

Truman C. Wang is editor of Classical Voice.

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