Opera Holland Park celebrated its 30th anniversary with a concert performance of Puccini's Turandot, the only one of the composer's works that had eluded the company until now. The production, staged in the opera's centenary year, featured a strong cast led by Portuguese tenor José de Eça as Calaf and French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels as Princess Turandot, with Canadian conductor Naomi Woo at the helm of the City of London Sinfonia.
Orchestral Reduction and Musical Highlights
Calling for colossal forces, Turandot is rarely attempted by smaller companies, but Tony Burke's orchestral reduction proved more than adequate to express the sonic grandeur of Puccini's score. All required exotic percussion was on display, with sufficient brass lending punch and panache. Only the Mandarin's opening xylophone and a feeble electric organ let things down, a minor quibble considering the classy performance of the City of London Sinfonia's 41 players under Woo's stylish baton. Her fluid interpretation packed the necessary punch while finding felicitous details sometimes buried in the full orchestration.
Direction and Staging
Director Eleanor Burke brought thoughtful ideas to the table, although singers were sometimes placed frustratingly distant from the audience, and the imposed ending, where a distraught Turandot roundly rejected Calaf, felt forced. The Opera Holland Park Chorus, joined by the company's enthusiastic youth chorus, demonstrated their quality, matching any choir on the circuit as they did in this season's La Fanciulla del West.
Cast Performances
José de Eça led the strong cast as Calaf, his phrasing supple and his tone ideally Italianate. His Nessun dorma was both elegant and thrilling, while an optional top C in the riddle scene found the Portuguese tenor barely breaking a sweat. Welsh soprano Fflur Wyn was a sweet-toned Liù with a lovely pianissimo, radiant in Signore ascolta and touching in her death scene. As Turandot, Anne Sophie Duprels had the necessary firepower at the top of the voice to ride the orchestra, though elsewhere she lacked amplitude and stability. Josef Jeongmeen Ahn, Joseph Buckmaster and Zwakele Tshabalala created charismatic and convincingly contrasting characters as Ping, Pang and Pong, bringing out the music's lyricism as well as its sardonic bite. Jihoon Kim was a warmly resonant Timur.
Further Performances
Further performances of Turandot at Opera Holland Park are scheduled for 25 and 27 June.
