Turandot, San Francisco Opera, October 4 2011

This was the concluding performance of the current presentation of Turandot. It was the David Hockney set, dating back to 1992. Act 1 is all bright red buildings with blue-green roofs. In the middle is a tower with a gong positioned at its base, up a few steps from stage level. At the second-story level there is a red scrim which, when illuminated from within, displays Turandot and her attendants so that Calaf can see the person that the Prince of Persia is about to lose his head for. To the left of the tower is a ramp up to a gate in the city wall, through which said Prince of Persia and an entire procession will march to his execution. To the far left is the city wall. Off to the right is a deep alleyway. Three severed heads hang from some of the eaves. The soldiers wear costumes that reminded me of Samurai warriors; I hope that they are actually authentic Chinese garb.

Act 2 opens with Ping, Pang, and Pong in front of a stage-wide and stage-high scrim featuring a painting of a classical Chinese scene with a lake in the foreground, a little house on the shore of the lake, and huge vertical monoliths in the background. To the left and right of the classical scene, the painting represents the interior of a large house, the rooms containing a few simple chairs, the whole presented in a rather skewed perspective. For the riddle scene, the scrim rises to show us more red walls, blue-green roofs, and 12-15 steps leading from the front of the stage to the rear doorway through which Emperor Altoun is carried on his throne.

Things get a lot darker in Act 3; after all, “no one shall sleep.” In the center of the stage there is a half-moon bridge with wide, red railings; above are a series of two-dimensional cutouts resembling stylized trees. For the conclusion of the act, the tree cutouts go away and the lights come up on a set of many bright-red cutouts, all very complicated and non-representational but nevertheless very striking.

Our cast:
Turandot: Irene Theorin
Calaf: Marco Berti
Liu: Leah Crocetto
Timur: Raymond Aceto
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Director: Garnett Bruce

This Turandot is most notable for the main-stage debut of Leah Crocetto. She first came to my attention two or three years ago, when she dominated everyone else on stage at the Merola Summer Concert, and I’ve been eager to hear her ever since. My wish was barely granted in last year’s season, when she sang the offstage priestess in Act 1 scene 2 of Aida. Now she gets a larger, on-stage role with “Signor, ascolta” in Act 1 and “Tanto, amore segreto” followed by “Si, Principessa” in Act 3. She sang beautifully and deserves the accolade in a published review, “an Adler Fellow whose future stardom has never been in doubt.” Some carped about her acting. My feeling was that she spent much of her time on stage as simply an observer (as did Timur), and she rightly did not call attention to herself. Irene Theorin was a capable Turandot; Marco Berti had no problem being heard (quoth a friend: “He had one note–loud.”) Raymond Aceto, last seen as Hunding in Die Walküre, also presented himself well. Nicola Luisotti was in his element, conducting Puccini. At the beginning of Act 3, when he asked the orchestra to stand, they remained seated and let him accept all the applause, a behavior that I have not seen before at San Francisco Opera. At final curtain call, the audience awarded the performers a standing ovation–which they seem to do almost every time now. 20 years ago, when they stood for Samuel Ramey’s tour-de-force Mefistofele, a standing ovation meant something. Now, not so much. A worthy performance, to be sure, but at best a solid beta.