Washington National Opera performed a world premiere production of Puccini’s work with a new final scene by Susan Soon He Stanton and Christopher Tin; at Park Avenue Armory, Peter Sellars directed a program of Bach cantatas and African-American spirituals presented as a call to action against climate change.
By
Heidi Waleson
Ewa Plonka (center) in ‘Turandot.’
PHOTO: CORY WEAVER
Washington
Although Puccini’s “Turandot” and “Madama Butterfly” are under fire lately for their stereotypical depictions of Asian characters, opera companies are reluctant to eliminate these hugely popular titles from their seasons. Productions that finesse the offensive elements offer one solution, but Washington National Opera has gone one step further.
Puccini died before he could finish “Turandot,” so the final scene—in which the bloodthirsty princess Turandot and her determined suitor Calaf get happily wed—was composed by Franco Alfano. The music is pedestrian and the resolution hurried and unsatisfactory—he kisses her, she melts. Francesca Zambello, WNO’s artistic director, has always wanted an ending that gives Turandot more agency, so she commissioned one. The resulting production, which sold out all its performances in advance, is currently at the Kennedy Center.
The new final scene by librettist Susan Soon He Stanton, known for her work on “Succession,” and Christopher Tin, who writes scores for videogames as well as concert music, fits the opera neatly. Its sound and attitude, while contemporary, grow organically from Puccini’s original, like a savvy modern addition on a historic building. Ms. Stanton’s libretto gives Turandot extra back story—she, like her ancestor, was raped and abducted, fueling her determination to punish men. It also kills off the aged Emperor, so Calaf asks Turandot, now the ruler, to choose between a reign of death or one of life.
Mr. Tin launches their confrontation with a fiercely dramatic duet; the sound is edgier than Puccini but still tonal, and Turandot’s initial insistence on power through violence is Wagnerian in scope and accompanied by blaring brass. Calaf counters with lyricism; he tells her his name to a reprise of the “Nessun dorma” tune, and asks her to choose mercy and love—which, eventually, she does. Other Puccini quotations bubble up—the hymn of praise to the emperor; Liù’s rising line as Turandot, in her turn, chooses “amore,” more “Nessun dorma”—but Mr. Tin doesn’t lean on them. In fact, the concluding joyful chorus sounds more like the anthem from “Les Misérables.” The composer happily enlists Puccini’s big orchestra and chorus, and the whole thing runs about 15 minutes, barely longer than the Alfano version, but with a lot more content packed in.
Yonghoon Lee and Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha
PHOTO: CORY WEAVER
The new ending also works because Ms. Zambello’s production updates the story from its fairy-tale origins to a contemporary totalitarian state. Wilson Chin’s set of looming industrial structures, their bars giving off a prison-like vibe, and Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting, with its shadowy grays, blaring fluorescent whites and lurid reds, all suggest a very unhappy place. The “people of Peking” are unhoused, suitcase-toting migrants; the soldiers, almost all women, wear Chinese Communist-like uniforms (Linda Cho did the costumes); Ping, Pang and Pong (here given the job titles Chancellor, Majordomo and Head Chef instead of those names) have modern suits, overcoats and fedoras. Turandot’s blood-red dress in Act 2 is a fitting complement to the stained knife hanging from the omnipresent guillotine; Jessica Lang and Kanji Segawa’s choreography for a nonet of soldiers recalls “The Red Detachment of Women.” The ending suggests, hopefully, that Turandot will be an enlightened ruler. It is, after all, still a fairy tale.
Ms. Plonka and Mr. Lee
PHOTO: CORY WEAVER
Ewa Plonka was a steely, imposing Turandot. Yonghoon Lee’s handsome tenor was appealing in Calaf’s tender “Non piangere, Liù,” but more frequently he punished it, pushing into brutal extremes of volume. Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha was a riveting Liù, her warm, rounded soprano especially poignant in her death scene. Peixin Chen was an affecting Timur. Ethan Vincent, Sahel Salam and Jonathan Pierce Rhodes (Chancellor, Majordomo and Head Chef) made a sweet moment of their Act 2 trio; when placed upstage in the crowd scenes, they were hard to hear. As the Mandarin, Le Bu’s potent bass-baritone leaped out of the texture.
Veteran tenor Neil Shicoff had a notable cameo as the Emperor; his tenor is still powerful, and his halting climb to his throne—and his interpolated collapse—signaled the ruler’s age and infirmity. The chorus sang forcefully; the children’s chorus, chillingly outfitted as young soldiers, shone. Conductor Speranza Scappucci tended to drive the tempi; the evening was sometimes a bit breathless, but exciting overall.
New York
“Shall We Gather at the River,” a world premiere presented on May 21 at the Park Avenue Armory, was billed as a musical call to action against climate change. Directed by Peter Sellars and presented in conjunction with “Coal + Ice,” a photography and video show on the subject now at the Asia Society Museum, the performance featured three Bach cantatas and five black American spirituals, minimally staged with dancers and accompanied by projections of works selected from the exhibition.
Those projections—including forest wildfires, retreating glaciers, slag heaps and, most powerfully, videos of people standing waist-deep in their flooded homes and streets—told some of the story. Otherwise, one had to rely on the program notes and extrapolate the message about humans despoiling the planet, since Cantata BWV 39 is a call to share affluence with the less fortunate; BWV 26 is about the emptiness of worldly riches; and BWV 20 depicts the horror of eternal damnation. The spirituals emphasized the endurance of suffering in this world, repentance, and the hope for a better life on the other side.
The cantatas were impressively performed by the period ensemble Oxford Bach Soloists, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and an excellent quartet of solo singers—Molly Quinn, Reginald Mobley, Nick Pritchard and Jonathan Woody. Tom Hammond-Davies was the sensitive conductor. Mr. Mobley, a countertenor, sang the spirituals with clarity and fervor. Wu Tong played the haunting introductory meditation on a sheng, a Chinese polyphonic reed instrument; its sound seemed to come from different directions in the darkened expanses of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall (Mark Grey did the sound design). Set and lighting designer Seth Reiser’s minimalist platform allowed for some changes of position by the singers and featured instrumentalists. The “flexn” choreography (a street-dance style) of Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray and four other dancers, with its hyperextended joints and twisting movements, communicated the anguish of the texts—a bit too viscerally—to the observers. Perhaps they were intended to evoke the suffering of the planet; with Mr. Sellars, one can never tell.
Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).
AndyManshel.nyc 