Turandot

We have now officially opera'd! And I have all the notes at the ready. Overall, we were pretty happy, enjoyed it, although I don't think has moved up on our priorities at all. No hurry to get back to another, but we had fun with this one.

Turandot is by Giacomo Puccini, who also did Madame Butterfly. The basic story is that Turandot, the imperial princess of China, has set up a contest wherein any suitor must answer three riddles. If they fail, they are executed. If they succeed, wedding times. Calaf, male lead, answers the riddles, but Turandot throws a fit about not wanting to marry him. So Calaf gives her a riddle of his own. If she can learn his name by morning, he will be executed. A lot of running around, tempting Calaf with money/women/what-have-you, and the torturing of a slave who loves Calaf. By morning Turandot has fallen for him and says his name is Love. The end.

Fun fact: there is a long lost son in the first minute. Over/Under for long lost relative was four minutes and it was still under!

More specifically, I had issues with certain things, but not all things. For the negatives: I was not a huge fan of the female lead, the set, or the costumes. Now, I pretty much knew going into the opera that I probably wouldn't like the female characters. I'm ok with the lower ends, but I really don't like the upper range tremolo singing. The really loud, higher pitched warbling always feels kind of grating to me. So, by the accounts of other people who had seen this showing, I guess she was pretty dern talented, but I didn't enjoy it.

Both the set and costumes suffered from modernization. For the set/scenery/setting/whatever you call it, I felt let down. My impression of opera is that there is generally very few set changes, that most of the drama happens in one place, and this was true for Turandot. The problem was that this one locale was just a semi-circle shaped entirely by corrugated metal sheeting with portraits hung along in rows. I have no idea why the palace was made of corrugated metal. For the costumes, some people were wearing "modern" clothing and some were in full robes. The modern clothing consisted of women's power suits, slacks/button-ups/ties office clothes, and a leather trench coat. It was ridiculous. The four main characters looked like Barbara Bush, Hagrid, Lucy Liu, and Gandalf respectively. How can I take this seriously?

The modernization may have been the biggest problem for me. I don't want them to pick and choose which characters wear updated clothing. I'm completely fine suspending disbelief that this rather hefty male lead is supposed to be a supremely athletic and dashing young prince, but don't dress him in a leather trench coat give him Hagrid's haircut. No power suits! Modernizing this old opera should not mean bring it up to the 1980s. I feel there are three good options. Bring it up to current date stylishly, go with traditional/original costumes, or simplify the traditional/original costumes. It's hard to see the Prince Calaf falling head-over-heels at first sight for someone dressed in a power suit with an old lady's haircut.

There's also, I feel, a major issue with the plot. They contemporaried up the clothes and setting, but the plot of the opera was unchanged. All the characters are still acting like it's ancient China. I feel like if you modernize the accoutrements, you must update the story to fit your chosen era.

Anyway, the good parts were still many. I enjoyed the rest of the music, the female supporting role was fantastic, and it had a pretty good sense of humor. It was in Italian, but the translations were projected above the stage so we could sort of follow along. The dialogue was pretty funny at times and some of the other characters were pretty solid. The three ministers Ping, Pang, and Pong in particular were favorites. It was about three hours long with two intermissions, but we stayed for the full show and never really felt like skipping out early.

All in all a good night, a good reason to dress spiffy and head out. I don't think we would turn down another opera in the future, but I would like any other opera to be in a more august theater, one that really feels like an opera house, and maybe one with a more traditional take. No stabs at modernity. I am ponying up the money to see an opera and gee-for-socks I want to get an opera! Tradition! Gilt boxes! Fancy clothes! It was a fine place with pretty strong acoustics, but it didn't feel like opera. Apparently in this regard I am a firm traditionalist. Who'd a guessed?