Long one of my favourite productions of anything, the Andrei Serban Turandot arrives on video, some 30 years after I saw its out-of-London try-out at the Olympics Arts Festival in Los Angeles, in a state of near defeat. Serban struck a healthy blow against the ultra-ornate Zeffirellian approach with a look that’s often as dark as the heart of the opera’s Chinese fairy-tale princess who beheads her suitors. With the chorus lined up along the rear of a primitive-looking multi-tiered set, the stage is effectively cleared for cleaner story-telling, using well-selected Chinese theatre techniques to convey not some fabulous royal court of one’s imagination but a provincial society dominated by a sorceress of sorts who maintains inhumane rule through some strange, unexplained power.

At least that’s how it came off with Gwyneth Jones and Plácido Domingo, both accomplished actors as well as singers, who originally played the main roles and gave a special charge to the Act 2 riddle scene. There, Calaf’s struggle isn’t just answering the riddle but freeing himself from Turandot’s psychological stranglehold that keeps him from knowing his own mind.

Of course, any production’s meaning morphs according to who is singing and re directing it. But the most immediate problem in this DVD is the production’s depth of field, which seems to have been impossible for video director Ian Russell to capture amid low lighting levels and surprisingly limited camera angles. Often the chorus disappears into stage murk. The prevalence of stage-level shots that look up at the set distractingly reveals a lighting apparatus that takes you out of the opera’s world.

There’s still plenty to look at, with a strong dance and acrobatic element – the Ping, Pang and Pong trio are unusually physical besides singing extremely well – plus coup de théâtre moments that are obligatory even in the most high-minded Turandot. But without the visible chorus, there’s little sense of Turandot’s community. Also, shots veer towards what looks hot, as opposed to how the scene builds.

Though led with great theatrical authority by conductor Henrik Nánási, the cast seems untried. In the leading roles, both Lise Lindstrom and Marco Berti have all the necessary notes and then some. But one doesn’t realise how much these roles need a strong theatrical presence until one doesn’t have it. Lindstrom is menacing but without many details, and Berti is theatrically inert, seemingly with only a rudimentary sense of how to operate onstage. As Liù, Eri Nakamura is everything they – as well as Raymond Aceto’s somewhat blank Timur – are not. The performance makes a far different impression if you close your eyes. Berti, in particular, has a fine sense of style and expression. But since this is a DVD, closing your eyes is not the point.