The Cairo Opera House’s Main Hall is currently hosting Giacomo Puccini’s “Turandot performed by the China National Opera House. A visually stunning work of grand scale, this production features an all Chinese cast, 190 in total, for Puccini’s work is originally set in the Peking Dynasty.
The Opera holds a special place in history as the last work of Giacomo Puccini, famed composer of popular works “La Bohème, “Madame Butterfly and “Tosca. Based on Italian dramatist’s Carlo Gozzi’s play of the same name, the work is notable as Puccini’s final composition, still incomplete at the time of his death.
“Turandot was subsequently completed by Italian composer Franco Alfano, creating the subject of great fascination of music historians for decades to come.
Upon its premiere to a sold-out audience at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1926, conductor Arturo Toscanini, a close friend of Puccini, conducted the opera only until the moment that Puccini stopped writing it, declaring “Qui finisce l’opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto (“Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died ).
Toscanini went on to revise Alfano’s ending in later performances, producing two versions of the work: respectively named “Alfano I and Toscanini’s “Alfano II. The latter is usually performed, though the program of the current performance doesn t specify which version they chose to perform.
“Turandot tells the story of a cruel princess determined to deter suitors. With each suitor, Turandot posed three riddles. If the suitor answered all three riddles correctly, he won the hand of the princess. If he failed, he lost his head. The icy maiden succeeds in her plan until the stubborn Prince Calaf makes his way toward her, at risk of beheading. Among the other important characters in the play are Timur, Calaf’s long lost father, and his faithful servant Liu, secretly in love with Calaf and destined to die for him.
Originally set in the Peking Imperial Palace, Puccini’s version is noted for incorporating themes from traditional Chinese music into its score.
The choice of this play for the National Chinese Opera in 2008, however, becomes less obvious when considering two factors. The first is that the libretto is written entirely in Italian, an element that the singers handled somewhat gracefully. The second is that the work is noted to have been banned in China until the late 1990s, for “unfavorable depiction of Chinese people, according to the Chinese government.
When the curtain rises on the performance, however, the audience will be greeted with less unflattering stereotypes, followed with an opulent cast of caricatures one might expect from any expensive international touring production. Globalization, even back to the time of Puccini, brought with it a standard repertoire of ethnicity for many of the world’s people – Arab, Latino, Chinese – often à la Disney, and “Turandot is no exception.
To their credit however, the Chinese National Opera manages to present some moving and individual portrayals – most notably of the ill-fated heroine, Lui, played with stirring humanity by Yao Hong. The courageous Prince Calaf, sung by Wang Feng, followed in integrity and holistic interpretation. Yao Hong is also to be the most vocally talented of the lead characters, as opposed to the somewhat laborious ornamentation of prima donna Liu Hongling as Turandot.
The opera’s discouraging ministers, rather condescendingly named Ping, Pang and Pong, are played with finesse by Wang Limin, Li Xiang and Li Bin. Their flamboyant movement and comic gesticulation are reminiscent of the Gilbert and Sullivan characters from Arthur Sullivan’s comic opera “The Mikado (1884). Choices in direction by the conductor/ director team of Yu Feng and Wang Huquan seem to strive more for aesthetic splendor and musical accompaniment than lyrical ability.
In general, the live orchestration of the performance overwhelms its vocals. While the choir produces pleasing cantata, the general strength of the work is found in the elaborate, lavish set and costuming.
Despite this and a few secondary setbacks, among them the chronic difficulty of subtitle projection in the Opera’s Main Hall, the large cast and chorus manage to create a pleasing, feast-for-the-eyes spectacle for Cairo audiences with wonderful sets by Ma Lianqing.
Catch “Turandot tonight and tomorrow at the Cairo Opera House’s Main Hall, 8 pm. Tel: (02) 2739 0212.
