All'alba vincerò! (not)

Photo by Stefanos

I had been waiting for this Turandot for quite a long time. The names were so promising that I was sure I would watch a wonderful performance.

The set during intermission

The first shock came when I entered the Odeon. The set was vast, it covered most of the stage and looked really ugly, poorly manufactured and definitely not elegant. But I tried to convince myself that the ugly cuts on the set were just gates and once the performance had begun I would forget about them.

The set just before the performance

Am i the only one who can see these ugly cuts?

I already knew Renata Scotto’s work as a stage director by her previous Madama Butterfly and Lucia di Lammermoor at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall some years ago and even if those were not the most original mise en scène I had ever watched, they were pure opera, traditional and sentimental.

What La Scotto tried to create for this Turandot, was a 3 level performance. People would move on the floor (first level) and then there would be the Palace interior where Altoum and Turandot would move or be sitted, and then on a third level there would be the choir and the Mandarin. All children chorus was excluded from on-stage and we only heard them (with the use of loudspeakers. Loud speakers indeed…).

So il tuo nome! So il tuo nome!

What was the result? A kitsch extravaganza that insulted my aesthetics. A horrible chinoiserie. And creating a chinoiserie for Turandot is the worst thing that a stage director can do. Gold, gold and more gold, staircases (not to heaven), ugly costumes (all of them reminded me of something…..Turandot with a white immaculate dress and really REALLY long, black hair? How original!!). And what made it even worse was that Scotto had even castrated the parts of Turandot that usually cause impression… No gong for Calaf at the Act 1 Finale. The Ministers (Ping, Pang and Pong) were so boring that I could die of boredom during their scene in Act II. And then, when Turandot gives the OK for the death of the Prince of Persia, Scotto has put her, (totally Arena-di-Verona-like), behind the audience and she has an allure really mysterious and exotic....but then again when she comes on stage to sing at last her “In Questa Reggia” she just comes in walking in front of Altoum? If you wanna impress, do it with class dear Renata. If I could describe Scotto’s work with a few words I would say:

Second class, kitsch, provincial

(if not inexistant overall)

Diecimila anni, al nostro Imperatore

Il suo nome é Amor...

And then the finale! Padre Augusto blah blah blah, and on stage we see a bunch of ghosts (vampires???) that surround Turandot and we lose sight of her. And when the circle of ghosts finally opens, what we see is an aged Turandot with grey hair and wrinkles. And Turandot dies on the (golden) staircase in front of Calaf (who during all this time doesn’t move a bit!!!) while the choir is singing “O sole, vita eternitá”. End of the show.

Da vampires are here! (and Calaf doesn't give a damn)

Calaf is still hesitating...What are these vampiros lesbos doing to my girl?

I have seen tons of performances in which even a horrible production could not undermine a great set of singers. But that was not the case last night.

Yorgos Matheakakis’ Mandarin was weak, with a volume that hardly made it to the first rows of the Odeon. C’mon! Is that the best Mandarin you could find? He was like a bad joke! And while Ping, Pang and Pong sing “I ministri siam del boia” (we ‘re ministers of the executioner) what they should actually sing is “I ministri siam di noia” (we ‘re the ministers of boredom). Kostas Mavrogenis, Dimitris Sigalos and Nikos Stefanou, competed in who would offer the worst sung minister and the most boring one…I couldn’t say. I would probably award all three of them.

And then the 4 soloists. Dimitri Kavrakos still displays an impressive voice and a most expressive one but his Timur was flat and not interesting.

On the other hand, Elena Kelessidi as Liú won our sympathy (well, this is always the case for Liú) with her mellifluous singing and I give her kudos for not being distracted by the Act I incident (*at the very beginning of “Signore Ascolta” a woman started crying for help in the audience -really loud- as apparently her son had fainted. That was not all: During Turandot’s “In Questa reggia” a woman was carried out of the theatre unconscious. Both incidents were noticed by everyone in the Odeon*). Kelessidi’s “Tu che di gel sei cinta” might have been the peak moment during the whole performance but it was really undermined by the stage direction (or the total lack of it).

Franco Farina was a less than mediocre Calaf. He was actually bad. He fought his way through the role and he lost. Ugly sounds, terrible high notes, and above all a “Nessun Dorma” of an amateur and definitely not a tenor with such a career. As you can hear, his “Dilegua, o notte! tramontate stele!” lacked consonants! It was only vowels! And he even tried to sing the acuta in “ti voglio ardente d’ amor”! And the result was a squeak, a shrill awful noise but certainly not a high B (of course, neither here were the consonants present). If he dared to sing like this in another theatre he would be severely booed. And booed he got indeed in Athens at the curtain calls. And I think he was not that surprised…

Photo by Stefanos

I was anxiously waiting to listen to Janice Baird. And while I was getting more and more disappointed during Act 1, I was yearning for Janice as a remedy to this dreadful Act. But remedy didn’t come. Ms. Baird came on stage trembling and sang a most mediocre “In Questa Reggia”. Unstable, even off tone sometimes, with a low volume voice and some lapsus of memory (ok, I know the libretto by heart, of course I noticed), thin high notes and really not into her role. Imperial and dominating in Act 2? Nope, I would say lost and disorientated on stage, with a funny wardrobe and an even funnier turban in Act 3. That was definitely not the Brünnhilde nor the Isolde I adored.

Listen to Janice Baird (and F.Farina)- In questa Reggia

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Listen to Franco Farina - Nessun Dorma

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Once again, the very same question was buzzing around my mind: Why the &*^% is Loukas Karytinos still conducting??? After last year’s fiasco at the Epidaurus Medea, this time with this Turandot he proved himself to be an uninspiring maestro, that can turn into pure boredom even the most wonderful piece of music like Turandot. Slow tempi, lack of support to his singers, wrong entrances of the orchestra etc etc. Even the Chorus of the Greek National Opera that have a –usually- high level were really below their standards. A special reference to Turandot’s servants who in Act 1 sing “Silenzio, olá! Laggiú chi parla?” and who are supposed to be ethereal and out of this world but instead they sounded like Ulrica’s long lost daughters….

Curtain call for Ping-Pang-Pong

Curtain call for Janice Baird

Curtain call for Renata Scotto and Carlo Diappi (the creator of the obnoxious set and costumes)

Productions meant to be of grandeur, need nowadays a totally different approach. I hope that this Turandot won’t set the standards for opera at the Odeon Of Herodes Atticus and especially for next years’ Aida which is going to be a co-production with the Arena di Verona and -as my spies inform me- will once again be directed by Renata Scotto (alas!)