PC in Peking

Puccini-TURANDOT: Angela Meade, Juliana Grigoryan; Jonathan Burton, Peixin Chen, Eleomar Cuello, Steven Cole/Atlanta Opera Chorus & Orchestra/Ivan Lopez Reynoso, cond.; Tomer Zvulun, dir.; Erhard Rom, sets; Ana Kuzmanic, costumes; seen May 3

To this we've come? To the point where the set designer is determining the musical edition? Such was the besetting sin of Atlanta Opera's deeply disappointing Turandot. It started, seemingly, from several wrongheaded convictions, including nominal stage director Tomer Zvulun's notion that he needed "to restore the opera's emotional truth and modern relevance." Well, at the risk of being the dog in the manger, Turandot's emotional truth is often quite unpleasant and what is the "modern relevance" of a work premiered 100 years ago?

To this end, Zvulun trotted out "a vibrant new ending," which was just another non-answer to a work that Puccini's didn't finish. (And, dare I suggest, was incapable of finishing, having thoroughly psyched himself out trying to reconcile his loveless pair of protagonists ... "poi Tristano" and all that?) What Zvulun did, at the behest of set designer Erhard Rom, was disembowel Act II and transplant "In questa reggia" to the moment in Act II where Franco Alfano's pen took over from Puccini's. Despite the disingenous assurance that no more than six bars of Alfano's offending (to them) music remained, what the production team did next was jump-cut from Turandot's aria to the now-standard, truncated Alfano finale.

There may be worse solutions out there (Luciano Berio's quickly discarded, modernist "completion" foremost among them). But this was a stinker and Atlanta Opera should be ashamed of tinkering with Turandot in this fashion. Zvulun appears to have simply punted the performing-edition problem over to Rom, who -- in his program note -- sniffily dismisses Alfano's efforts as "unfortunate ... second rate." He got his brainwave by (I kid you not) mis-programming his CD player. As Rom relates in an essay, pompously titled "How to Solve the Riddle of Turandot for Contemporary Audiences" ...

Erhard Rom: Set designer as musical mastermind

"One day I was listening to the last act while driving to work. I got to my destination just as the scene of Liu's death was ending. In other words, exactly where the composer died. When I came back to my car, I wanted to continue listening, but I accidentally put in the wrong CD and what I heard was Turandot's big aria in Act II ... As I listened, a sudden thought struck meL what if that aria occurred precisely at this moment in the work, rather than in Act II? ... If she sings the aria after Liu's death in Act III, it gives Turandot a chance to reclaim the central focus of the piece and build a powerful ending with some of the best music ever composed to Puccini."

And of that politcally correct codswollop was Atlanta's production born. Not only is following Liu's demise with Turandot's apologia pro vita sua in dubious taste, the various cuts and transplantations do violence to Puccini's sequences of tonalities. Shamefully, new Atlanta Opera Principal Conductor Ivan Lopez Reynoso endorses this mayhem in his program note. Does one detect a note of defensiveness in all this spilled ink? I think so.

The resultant hodgepodge was not only musical. Zvulun's production begged more questions than it answered, ironically, considering its pretentious premise that Turandot's "final riddle" had now been solved. Zvulun has apparently succumbed to the dangerous, Peter Gelb notion that the last thing people want to see at the opera is other people singing. Ergo, the stage was festooned with a quartet of breakdancers, who variously spun on their heads and battled with martial artists. (Don't ask.)

For all the criticism of Puccini that he presents the people of Peking as a faceless mass, that is exactly what they became here, all identically garbed and heavily enmasked. Oh, and Calaf brandishes a six-shooter in Act I, which is fired just when you most fear it will be in Act III -- and not discharged when you most wish it would be.

Adding to the conundrum, the costumes looked randomly, desperately pulled from stock. The wise men were garbed as Aida high priests and Turandot's low-cut gown suggested La Gioconda instead. In his fedora and floor-length duster, the tenor was more Dick Johnson than Calaf, while his father was made a White Russian emigré. As for Liu, she was straight off Paris' Left Bank in her fashionable beret and boots (and not-so-fashionable puffy coat). Why was Emperor Altoum's Statue of Liberty headress crowned with a Christian cross? Why was the Mandarin (the fine Kyle White) garbed as a white horse? Why, oh why indeed? Only the three Masks, decked out in commedia dell'arte fashion, emerged ahead.

Rom's set was a movable collection of Mondrian-style patterns, which were occasionally garnished with light boxes that descended from the flies ... as though Robert Wilson had taken an errant hand in the scenography. At least it gave the performers plenty of traffic to traverse, keeping them busy, and pushed them well to the fore (always a necessity in the Cobb Centre auditorium). Incidentally, a "live-action director" (Ran Arthur Braun) was credited and, since all the action was "live," it left one wondering what exactly Zvulun did besides preside loosely over an addle-pated Konzept production?

But what of that supreme afterthought, the music? Reynoso led firmly, deliberately, if not in very trenchant fashion. The angular profile of the music suffered. Lisa Hasson's chorus sounded more like a un-congealed collection of voices than a euphonious ensemble. The Atlanta Opera Orchestra played spendidly, however.

Angela Meade (as Alice Ford)

This was my first in-the-flesh encounter with the much-ballyhooed Angela Meade (Turandot). I do not buy the hype. She had some of the power for the role and occasional ruth, when Turandot must yield. But that was it. Her loud and soft signing were tremulous alike, inspiring immediate anxiety, and there was much leaning-on of chest voice. If Meade had interesting musical things to say about Turandot, she kept them to herself, and her stage deportment was relentlessly petulant.

Jonathan Burton's Calaf presented an opposite problem. His is an attractive lyric tenor, phrased with style, but nowhere near robust nor pointed enough for the rigors of this part. He seems to have been the victim of some very bad career advice and should drop Calaf like the bad habit it is.

For the most part, Juliana Grigoryan lived up to her advance press as Liu. Grigoryan's is a lovely instrument, splendidly suited to lofting the role's high pianissimi on the breath. Her stage presence is very sympathetic. But I thought I detected some muscling out of sound in the lower register, in an effort to "make tone." That should be discouraged of her.

The most complete vocal function to be heard was from Peixin Chen's Timur, whose coal-black voice rolled impressively through the part. One was put in mind of that late, great statesman amongst basses, Plinio Clabassi. Still, the inarguable high point of the performance was Act II/Scene 1, given blessedly uncut. The mellifluous threesome of Eleomar Cuello (Ping), Wayne Odle (Pang/Prince of Persia) and Terrence Chin-Loy (Pong) made a well-oiled ensemble, as adept at comedy as at singing. Placed at an acoustical disadvantage, practically up in the fly gallery, veteran character tenor Steven Cole nonetheless scored pithily as Emperor Altoum.

Yet for all the dubious "improvements" on Puccini (and Alfano) and the librettists, the packed house seemed to mostly find the proceedings unimprovably wonderful. So what do I know? Atlanta Opera produces Turandot roughly every seven years, therefore Tomer Zvulun must have been desperate for novelty. If he was, he courted disaster and it wooed him right back.

Thus it is on to the season-ending Gotterdammerung. Zvulun again directs and, based on prior installments, can be trusted with this Wagnerian masterwork. Thank God for that.—David McKee