Turandot in the Alexander Theatre, the 29th of August, 2020

 

Opera Box was also compelled to postpone its performances of ”Turandot” to the autumn. Since I have seen ”Turandot” several times, I did not expect anything unusual, but I had to admit that it is possible to be surprised also when it comes to familiar operas.

This opera tells about princess Turandot from ancient China. She has decided to remain unmarried and therefore she poses three riddles to her suitors. If the man does not guess the answers correctly, he is beheaded. Quite a number of corpses has also piled up, when the son of the deposed king Timur arrives, falls in love with Turandot as soon as he sees her and announces that he wants to marry her even though both Timur and his servant Liù (who is in love with Calaf) oppose the proposal. Calaf guesses the correct answers and Turandot is shocked. He promises her that if she guesses his name, he will cancel his win and allow the beheading. Turandot orders the whole country to find out the name. Timur and Liù have been seen in Calaf’s company, so they are threatened with torture. To save Timur Liù announces that she is the only one, who knows the name. She is tortured and in the end she kills herself telling that she remains silent because of her love for Calaf. At dawn Calaf and Turandot meet, he kisses her and she is swamped by feelings. Once Calaf understands what a shock the thought of marriage is to Turandot, he tells her his real name. In the morning it is time for Turandot to reveal his name and order his execution, but instead she announces that his name is Love.  

Usually this opera is more or less full of China kitsch like red lanterns and flying sleeves. However in this production director Ville Saukkonen had made a different decision and the story took place in a future scifi-world. For once there were no Ville Saukkonen’s trademark boxes on the stage, but the settings (by Emil Sallinen, who was also responsible for the video projections on the back wall) mostly consisted of a platform built at the back of the stage. Lighting by Janne Teivainen and absolutely masterful scifi-styled costumes by Joona Huotari formed a magnificent visual effect. Top scores from me.  

Sinfonietta Ariadne and conductor Jonas Rannila also surprised me. Rannila forced incredible volumes from his smallish orchestra and I was pretty much flabbergasted, first, how it was possible to stage such a big opera first of all on the rather small stage of the Alexander Theatre and, second of all, how the orchestra managed to sound so much bigger than it actually was.

Even the soloists mostly did good work. The biggest star on the stage was, of course, Giuseppe Varano as Calaf. The role was like created for him and his strong voice. Usually the peak of this role is the aria ”Nessun dorma”, but I was even more impressed by his aria Liù. The moment was so touching that I had to take off my face mask, blow my nose and disinfect my hands. It is no longer so easy to have a touching moment in the opera without anybody seeing!

Annami Hylkiä as Liù was also very good and the voices of Niklas Spånberg, Ville Salonen and Petteri Loukio as  Ping, Pang and Pong did fit very well together. In addition to the singers, I have to mention also Jaakko Hutchings as the executioner. Such wonderful plasticity, beautifully choreographed fighting moves!

Unfortunately, the singer of Turandot - Satu Kristiina Vesa was - not at least yet - quite up to the challenge vocally. The role is very demanding. But despite that, the whole opera was fantastic and I can recommend it to everybody when it will be again performed in the beginning of next year in the Alexander Theatre.