Puccini's Turandot
The Gramophone Choice
Joan Sutherland sop Princess Turandot Luciano Pavarotti ten Calaf Montserrat Caballé sop Liù Tom Krause bar Ping Pier Francesco Poli ten Pang Piero De Palma ten Pong Nicolai Ghiaurov bass Timur Peter Pears ten Emperor Altoum Sabin Markov bar Mandarin Wandsworth School Boys’ Choir; John Alldis Choir; London Philharmonic Orchestra / Zubin Mehta
Decca 414 274-2DH2 (117‘ · ADD · T/t). Recorded 1972. Buy from Amazon
Turandot is a psychologically complex work fusing appalling sadism with self-sacrificing devotion. The icy Princess of China has agreed to marry any man of royal blood who can solve three riddles she has posed. If he fails his head will roll. Calaf, the son of the exiled Tartar king Timur, answers all the questions easily and, when Turandot hesitates to accept him, magnanimously offers her a riddle in return – ‘What is his name?’. Liù, Calaf’s faithful slave-girl, is tortured but, rather than reveal his identity, kills herself. Turandot finally capitulates, announcing that his name is Love. Joan Sutherland’s assumption of the title-role is statuesque, combining regal poise with a more human warmth, while Montserrat Caballé is a touchingly sympathetic Liù, skilfully steering the character away from any hint of the mawkish. Pavarotti’s Calaf is a heroic figure in splendid voice and the chorus is handled with great power, baying for blood at one minute, enraptured with Liù’s nobility at the next. Mehta conducts with great passion and a natural feel for Puccini’s wonderfully tempestuous drama. Well recorded.
Additional Recommendations
Maria Callas sop Princess Turandot Eugenio Fernandi ten Calaf Elisabeth Schwarzkopf sop Liù Mario Borriello bar Ping Renato Ercolani ten Pang Piero De Palma ten Pong Nicola Zaccaria bass Timur Giuseppe Nessi ten Emperor Altoum Giulio Mauri bass Mandarin Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan / Tullio Serafin
EMI mono 556307-2 (118‘ · ADD · T/t). Recorded 1957. Buy from Amazon
To have Callas, the most flashing-eyed of all sopranos as Turandot, is – on record at least – the most natural piece of casting. Other sopranos may be comparably icy in their command but Callas, with her totally distinctive tonal range, was able to give the fullest possible characterisation. With her, Turandot was not just an implacable man-hater but a highly provocative female. One quickly reads something of Callas’s own underlying vulnerability into such a portrait, its tensions, the element of brittleness. With her the character seems so much more believably complex than with others. It was sad that, except at the very beginning of her career, she felt unable to sing the role in the opera house, but this recording is far more valuable than any memory of the past, one of the most thrillingly magnetic of all her recorded performances, the more so when Schwarzkopf as Liù provides a comparably characterful and distinctive portrait, far more than a Puccinian ‘little woman’, sweet and wilting.
Next to such supreme singers it was perhaps cruel of Walter Legge to choose so relatively uncharacterful a tenor as Eugenio Fernandi as Calaf, but at least his timbre is pleasingly distinctive. What fully matches the positive character of the singing of Callas and Schwarzkopf is Serafin’s conducting, which is sometimes surprisingly free but, in its pacing, invariably captures colour, atmosphere and mood, as well as dramatic point. The Ping, Pang and Pong episode has rarely sparkled so naturally, the work of a conductor who has known and loved the music in the theatre over a long career.
The conducting is so vivid that the limitations of the mono sound hardly seem to matter. As the very opening will reveal, the CD transfer makes it satisfyingly full-bodied. Though with its rich, atmospheric stereo the Mehta set remains the best general recommendation, it’s thrilling to have this historic document so vividly restored.
Birgit Nilsson sop Turandot Giuseppe di Stefano ten Calaf Leontyne Price sop Liù Nicola Zaccaria bass Timur Kostas Paskalis bass-bar Ping Ermanno Lorenzi ten Pang Murray Dickie ten Pong Peter Klein ten Altoum Alois Pernerstorfer bass-bar Mandarin Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra / Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Orfeo d’Or mono b C757 082I (113’ · ADD). Recorded live 1961. Buy from Amazon
It’s not so hard to think oneself present, especially when the recording is as vivid as this and the performance so compelling. It was a special night in Vienna. Karl Löbl wrote it up (and partly down) for his paper at the time, and now, contributing the notes for this issue, says of his generation that they didn’t know how lucky they were. He is clearly convinced that, whatever the shortcomings then, they were great times compared with the pallid present.
And it’s true we have no Birgit Nilsson now. She is in magnificent form here. Though she is singing much of the time from some way back on stage, the sound is still immensely powerful, and when she does come down front for the final duet we mentally take a step or two back. Much of the special interest, however, lies with the Calaf and the Liù. Di Stefano wins through by the conviction of all he sings: blazing, for instance, in the enigmas. Leontyne Price, too, brings unusual intensity to her role. Vibrant and warm in tone, she shades her phrases sensitively, disappointing only in that she does not resist the temptation to make an effect by investing the B flat of 'Signore, ascolta' with a crescendo. The others – the aged Emperor, the deposed King and the three quaint Ministers – are strongly cast, and the chorus make a grand contribution. Molinari-Pradelli conducts with more character than in the famous EMI studio set, and the recording picks out details of orchestration we may well have missed in other, technically better balanced, versions.
Turandot (in English)
Jane Eaglen sop Turandot Dennis O’Neill ten Calaf Mary Plazas sop Liù Clive Bayley bass Timur New London Children’s Choir; Geoffrey Mitchell Choir; Philharmonia Orchestra / David Parry
Chandos Opera in English CHAN3086 (119‘ · DDD · S/T). Buy from Amazon
The great glory of this set is Jane Eaglen’s Turandot. There’s no strain even in the most taxing passages, a firmness and a clarity that hasn’t always marked her recordings. O’Neill gives a strong, heroic reading but with the occasional moment of strain.
