Puccini’s “Turandot,” a verismo opera set in a fabled model of historic China, makes for an odd love story. Its unlikable romantic leads go largely unfazed by the dying and dismemberment they instigate; after they lastly share real love’s kiss, they’re standing atop a figurative pile of corpses.
On Wednesday on the Metropolitan Opera, the conductor Oksana Lyniv made a robust debut, emphasizing the murderous, life-or-death stakes as a substitute of the fairy-tale Orientalism that has made it a cultural lightning rod lately.
“Turandot” has been on the receiving finish of requires revision and extra for the stereotypes it perpetuates about Chinese folks — corresponding to its “dragon lady” title princess — recalling an imperialistic period of European chauvinism.
The reckoning round “Turandot” creates an issue for the Met, as a result of the corporate’s long-running manufacturing, a lavish spectacle launched by the director Franco Zeffirelli in 1987, is successful. The gold-and-ecru throne room of Act II nonetheless dazzles, and eye-popping exoticism runs rampant, with acrobats, ribbon dancers, curled-roof pavilions and a dragon puppet.
But that stage dressing was not current in Lyniv’s thrilling conducting. The brass stabs that open Act I had an nearly expressionistic high quality — extreme, important, grim — and those that closed it have been chilly, highly effective and withholding. Taut strings and slinky woodwinds moved with dramatic, serpentine effectivity. Lyniv seized alternatives to foreground astringent harmonies.
Turandot’s motif, which Puccini primarily based on a Chinese folks tune, was splendid with out being ornamental in Act I, and warmly earthy in Act III after the princess had been humbled. Lyniv’s sense of rubato created simply sufficient elasticity for the singers to phrase naturally, as within the ministers’ dreamily nostalgic “Ho una casa nell’Honan.”
The soprano Elena Pankratova, additionally making a debut, was an uncommonly delicate Turandot who turned the cliché of the icy princess on its head. In her opening aria, “In questa reggia,” she revealed herself to be a deeply human storyteller, backing off the ends of phrases in a method that drew listeners into her story of generational trauma. She did such pretty work within the function’s lower-lying components that one may forgive her lack of impression within the excessive notes within the riddle scene.
The tenor SeokJong Baek didn’t have a lot to do throughout his firm debut earlier within the season within the restricted function of Ismaele in Verdi’s “Nabucco.” Not so in “Turandot,” during which his Calàf galvanized the efficiency. His shining, superbly deployed voice represented a decided, vainglorious Calàf ruled by his personal egoism. High notes didn’t a lot bloom as rise like a column from a good-looking center, and pastel-colored singing added depth with out turning him right into a generic romantic hero. Baek’s physicality, elegant in its restraint, likewise conveyed Calàf’s certitude.
The soprano Aleksandra Kurzak formed Liù’s music with energetic confidence and ahead movement. Even in her sacrifice for Calàf, this Liù remained variety and smart slightly than pitiful and meek, an oasis of sanity in a world gone mad with harmful needs. The bass Vitalij Kowaljow made an argument for casting Timur, Calàf’s father, with a singer who nonetheless possesses reserves of richness and energy. His mournful howls after Liù’s dying had dignity, and a kingly dimension.
As Lyniv introduced the opera to a stirring conclusion, the viewers couldn’t comprise its enthusiasm, protecting the ultimate bars of the rating with raucous applause as gold confetti fluttered onto the stage from the rafters. The ovation was clearly for the resplendent stage image, but when the applause for Lyniv’s solo bow was any indication, it was additionally for the conductor who accomplished it.
Turandot
In repertory, with totally different casts, by June 7 on the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org.
