By reviving for the umpteenth time Lorenzo Fioroni's production of Turandot, created in 2008, the Deutsche Oper once again demonstrates its ability to treat the lyrical repertoire with the greatest intelligence. Offering the title role to Ricarda Merbeth allows for a voice that is less harsh than those of the role's usual performers to be heard; she is surrounded by a high-quality cast and a chorus propelled among the best thanks to the arrival of Jeremy Bines this season, while in the pit Alexander Vedernikov brings out the wonders of the orchestral score
Since 2008, Lorenzo Fioroni's production of Turandot has featured Lise Lindström, Catherine Foster, Erika Sunnegårdh, and now Ricarda Merbeth. The latter is not today what is frequently expected of the role—a dramatic soprano who also performs Elektra, in the tradition of Birgit Nilsson. When Merbeth performs the Richard Strauss opera, she is only Chrysothemis, but this tessitura actually offers Puccini's last great role more lyricism, while deploying exceptional power right up to the final duet. The riddle scene shows the singer's progress in the Italian repertoire; she is remarkable here, as in her final aria, the superb Del primo pianto, which just lacks a little extra stage charisma.
Psychological and centered on violence as much as on human madness, Fioroni does not place the action in an identifiable location. He puts the mass of people facing the audience on numbered chairs, and leaves the ruling nomenclature at a height, except when Turandot must pose riddles like for a television game show where the loser forfeits their life. The ministers, then dressed in a wedding gown or a pile of bones like those worn by cannibals' tribal sorcerers, seek to bring the modern tale back to the torments of the ancestors, always latent in our current societies.
The role of Calaf goes to Stefano La Colla, a Puccini specialist who managed to replace and surpass Antonenko in Milan with Riccardo Chailly in 2015, but has also performed the role in Naples, Chicago, Rome, and Munich, as well as already on this stage three years earlier. His voice has hardened somewhat in recent years, because this role, without appearing to be so, is one of the heaviest in the repertoire, although the tenor still demonstrates superb power. He achieves a magnificent Nessun Dorma as well as a touching Non piangere Liù. In the loving character of Liù, whose death gives Turandot a taste for happiness, Cristina Pasaroiu does not manage to make as strong an impression as she did on this same stage last year as Magda in La Rondine. She does, however, develop a touching woman, vibrant even in the first part of the aria just before her death.
Albert Pesendorfer seems well recovered from difficult recent years and delivers a sensitive Timur, sometimes short of breath, giving credibility to this old protagonist, while another house singer, Peter Maus, has delivered superb coldness as Emperor Altoum since the production's creation and in all revivals. Byung Gil Kim holds a quality Mandarin from his very first entrance at the beginning of Act I, while among the three ministers, Dong-Hwan Lee as Ping and Ya-Chung Huang as Pang are convincing, but above all allow Attilio Glaser's Pong to stand out through his stage presence as much as the clarity of his voice and his perfect Italian pronunciation.
The Chor der Deutschen Oper has always been among the best and proved it again over the last decade under the direction of William Spaulding, especially in the German repertoire. But since this season, Jeremy Bines has arrived from Glyndebourne, and at the risk of exaggerating, the performance in Turandot, which was as exceptional as the incredible Aida in October, now makes us think he has propelled the chorus into the top five in the world, alongside the ensembles of the Royal Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera. Each appearance shows a fervor as well as an italianità that was previously unknown to this often-too-massive ensemble. The delicacy of the Nessun Dorma or the contained violence used to make Liù speak in Act III particularly enhance these parts.
To this is added the superb conducting finesse of Alexander Vedernikov, a conductor who is invited too infrequently and who, in 2015, already took the place in this pit previously occupied for this work by the late Jesús López Cobos. Very differently from that other very great conductor, who was too little regarded compared to more marketed names, Vedernikov applies a modernity and a lightness to this score that do it justice, with a climax in the treatment of the orchestra during the riddle scene. The conductor also magnifies the Finale by Franco Alfano, in the version not cut by Toscanini. Approximately three minutes longer than the usually validated version, this choice presents many more details, in addition to showing difficult harmonies that revalue the work done by the composer after Puccini's death, and currently seems to be the best possible version to finish the opera, ahead of Berio's reorchestration or the closure of the work just after Liù's death.
Source.
Since 2008, Lorenzo Fioroni's production of Turandot has featured Lise Lindström, Catherine Foster, Erika Sunnegårdh, and now Ricarda Merbeth. The latter is not today what is frequently expected of the role—a dramatic soprano who also performs Elektra, in the tradition of Birgit Nilsson. When Merbeth performs the Richard Strauss opera, she is only Chrysothemis, but this tessitura actually offers Puccini's last great role more lyricism, while deploying exceptional power right up to the final duet. The riddle scene shows the singer's progress in the Italian repertoire; she is remarkable here, as in her final aria, the superb Del primo pianto, which just lacks a little extra stage charisma.
Psychological and centered on violence as much as on human madness, Fioroni does not place the action in an identifiable location. He puts the mass of people facing the audience on numbered chairs, and leaves the ruling nomenclature at a height, except when Turandot must pose riddles like for a television game show where the loser forfeits their life. The ministers, then dressed in a wedding gown or a pile of bones like those worn by cannibals' tribal sorcerers, seek to bring the modern tale back to the torments of the ancestors, always latent in our current societies.
The role of Calaf goes to Stefano La Colla, a Puccini specialist who managed to replace and surpass Antonenko in Milan with Riccardo Chailly in 2015, but has also performed the role in Naples, Chicago, Rome, and Munich, as well as already on this stage three years earlier. His voice has hardened somewhat in recent years, because this role, without appearing to be so, is one of the heaviest in the repertoire, although the tenor still demonstrates superb power. He achieves a magnificent Nessun Dorma as well as a touching Non piangere Liù. In the loving character of Liù, whose death gives Turandot a taste for happiness, Cristina Pasaroiu does not manage to make as strong an impression as she did on this same stage last year as Magda in La Rondine. She does, however, develop a touching woman, vibrant even in the first part of the aria just before her death.
Albert Pesendorfer seems well recovered from difficult recent years and delivers a sensitive Timur, sometimes short of breath, giving credibility to this old protagonist, while another house singer, Peter Maus, has delivered superb coldness as Emperor Altoum since the production's creation and in all revivals. Byung Gil Kim holds a quality Mandarin from his very first entrance at the beginning of Act I, while among the three ministers, Dong-Hwan Lee as Ping and Ya-Chung Huang as Pang are convincing, but above all allow Attilio Glaser's Pong to stand out through his stage presence as much as the clarity of his voice and his perfect Italian pronunciation.
The Chor der Deutschen Oper has always been among the best and proved it again over the last decade under the direction of William Spaulding, especially in the German repertoire. But since this season, Jeremy Bines has arrived from Glyndebourne, and at the risk of exaggerating, the performance in Turandot, which was as exceptional as the incredible Aida in October, now makes us think he has propelled the chorus into the top five in the world, alongside the ensembles of the Royal Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera. Each appearance shows a fervor as well as an italianità that was previously unknown to this often-too-massive ensemble. The delicacy of the Nessun Dorma or the contained violence used to make Liù speak in Act III particularly enhance these parts.
To this is added the superb conducting finesse of Alexander Vedernikov, a conductor who is invited too infrequently and who, in 2015, already took the place in this pit previously occupied for this work by the late Jesús López Cobos. Very differently from that other very great conductor, who was too little regarded compared to more marketed names, Vedernikov applies a modernity and a lightness to this score that do it justice, with a climax in the treatment of the orchestra during the riddle scene. The conductor also magnifies the Finale by Franco Alfano, in the version not cut by Toscanini. Approximately three minutes longer than the usually validated version, this choice presents many more details, in addition to showing difficult harmonies that revalue the work done by the composer after Puccini's death, and currently seems to be the best possible version to finish the opera, ahead of Berio's reorchestration or the closure of the work just after Liù's death.
Source.
"Turandot" lyrical and modern at the Deutsche Oper Berlin
Vincent GUILLEMIN, ResMusica, March 21, 2018
