So many over-the-top elements come together in Puccini's lush swan song, Turandot, that it can be easy to forget that this operatic fairy tale has something genuine to say about the nature of love and sacrifice. Andrei Serban's now-classic 25-year-old staging delivers that message in an unusually effective, even affecting manner.
Designed for and often revived at London's Royal Opera House, the Serban production has been imported by Washington National Opera to wrap up the company's Kennedy Center season. (A concert version, minus sets and costumes, will be given at Baltimore's Lyric Opera House on June 2.)
The Serban approach to Turandot largely downplays the work's kitschier elements and avoids the temptation toward spectacle. The title character, an imperious Chinese princess who coolly has suitors executed when they can't solve three riddles, doesn't even get a truly grand entrance. She's brought more down to earth, as it were, where it's harder for her to distance herself from a mysterious stranger, who, unconcerned about his own head, decides to try his luck at gaining her heart.
The director frames the action as a kind of opera-within-an-opera. Placed in the balconies of a set that suggests an old theater, masked, dark-clothed choristers gaze down on the vividly costumed characters acting out the drama, along with several balletic figures artfully woven into the action by choreographer Kate Flatt.
Serban's most unconventional touch is a deliberate intrusion into the supposed happily-ever-after finale. The body of the slave girl Liu, who had sacrificed her life rather than betray the identity of the unexpectedly successful riddle-solver Calaf, is pulled across the stage on a funeral carriage by Calaf's blind and now guideless father, Timur. Heavy-handed, to be sure, but a distinctive way to drive home the tragic underpinning of this exotic once-upon-a-timer.
On Saturday night, Sabina Cvilak was a remarkable Liu. Whatever she lacked as an actress, the soprano more than made up for in gorgeously floated pianissimo notes. Her arias registered deeply.
In the title role, Maria Guleghina summoned great waves of volume, yet offered considerable tonal and expressive nuance as well. This was not the typical, stand-and-scream kind of Turandot we all know too well. There was always something musical in Guleghina's delivery, and enough warmth to offset the steel. As Calaf, Dar?o Volont? got the job done, but the beefy tenor did not produce a meaty enough tone.
