One sees why critics grapple with Turandot. The mythic elements are extremely potent and indeed transgressive in that they reverse the more usual pattern of eroticised violence by depicting a chaste female ruler as the ritual murderer of desirable (and desirous) males. It’s a form of violence occasioned by a rejection (not the indulgence) of eroticism, a rejection exacted by the rape of a female ancestor. And so toxic femininity wears the crown – and what a crown, almost a candelabra – until the final act.
Mythically too, it is the self-sacrifice, through suicide, of the first female victim that brings about her healing transformation, her readiness to fall in love. Yet when this happens, and the mythic is humanised, when darkness gives way to new dawn and the opera ends transcendently with simple erotic amore, it feels almost implausible, as if the denouement hasn’t quite been earned. We don’t really forgive Turandot for Liù’s death (nor for all the other bloody heads); we don’t feel she has done enough interior work as reparation, and although one doesn’t want to be too ungenerous about happy endings, one does have certain sympathies with an alternative ending where she kills herself (so the reprieve of “Nessun dorma” is a final irony); yes her suitor has won, and this is what it means. But tonight, we kept with shimmering transcendence and papered over the narrative cracks with full-on Puccinian lyricism.
Quibbles about the story aside, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City delivered a big, bold spectacular tonight, directed by Garnett Bruce, boasting evocative set designs by R Keith Brumley (complete with monumental terracotta figures and dragon-ornamented gates) and lavish costumes by Mary Traylor. So much of Puccini's opera is weighted by ritual and ritual was duly observed in the strict geometry of the choreography. The chorus stood out especially in the many moments of high intensity; their cries of urgency, cruelty or pity were both thrilling and chilling, representing now a fickle mob, then a servile population. The chorus prove the primal heartbeat of the whole opera, along with the orchestra, pacy, urgent and dramatic under the baton of Carlo Montanaro.
Wendy Bryn Harmer as Turandot, with a voice vibrating with a kind of electricity, brought proper stridency to the high-wire role. There’s a shrill violence to the way her music is written, and we heard her dominant over the whole chorus in Act 2, just as she should. Diego Torre sang Calaf, he whose singularity disrupts the myth. He is a bleeding-heart presence tenor, his voice dripping with melancholic passion and sustained sound. If “Nessun dorma” didn’t quite break through the sound barrier, it nonetheless was powerfully symbolic of a man determined to break through a cycle of ritualised violence.
Brittany Oliva Logan, early in her career, was remarkable as suffering heroine, Liù, and is certainly one to watch in the future. She has a truly lovely soprano, effortless, soaring and well-timed. It carried all her emotions with power, belying her character's lowly status. It’s her tragedy that disguised princes will only think of princesses rather than devoted slave girls: endogamy is alive and well in mythland. “My little Liù” he sings when she dies; the diminutive is indicative. David Soar as Calaf's father, Timur, articulated her tribute more powerfully, convincing throughout. Indeed, it is Timur's dire promise of retribution for this crime that sets us up for a fate that doesn’t really happen – Turandot’s instant turnaround, awakened to love by a kiss, skips over this. But we like the competitive sing-off between her and Calaf.
Alex Smith, Zhengyi Bai and Daniel Lee were an engaging trio, flamboyant and fanned, as Ping, Pang and Pong although at times, I wanted more vocal heft from all three. They are our one stab at lightness in the whole opera. We can’t live on cruelty and transcendence alone. I loved the setting of Act 2, as they careen on ladders to access the cases of endless scrolls, and they garnered some laughs. Thematically, theirs is an interesting detour exploring the boredom of life as court creatures when they’d much rather go back to enjoying their homeland. Even bureaucrats in Puccini’s Peking have fancies, even myths of their own.
