Giacomo Puccini - Turandot
Teatro Real Madrid, 2018
Robert Wilson, Nicola Luisotti, Iréne Theorin, Raúl Giménez, Andrea Mastroni, Yolanda Auyanet, Gregory Kunde, Joan Martín-Royo, Vicenç Esteve, Juan Antonio Sanabria, Gerardo Bullón
France TV Culturebox
Robert Wilson's very distinctive and largely homogenous approach to set design isn't suited to every opera. Looking right back to Einstein on the Beach in 1976, it's clear that his style tends to work better with abstraction and ritual movements rather than with drama and narrative, but even working with Puccini or Verdi the effect of his unique style can be simply stunning in its use of light and colour and in its sheer visual splendour.
Not relying on any real-world situation but on a fantasy fairy-tale Turandot would seem better suited to the Wilson style, the opening Act alone of Puccini's opera being itself almost an abstract expression of living in fear and terror. In Turandot, Puccini was pushing his craft as a composer, exploring a new progressive direction for Italian opera, an endeavour that was unfortunately cut short with the death of the composer, Turandot itself remaining unfinished, its promise tantaslisingly unfulfilled.
That character is described well in Wilson's direction of that remarkable Act I of Turandot, the familiar luminous gradations of cobalt blue tending to darker shades, towards purple and shadow. The light of the moon casts an eerie light over the executioner and his next victim and over the people of Peking who live in fear of the terrible reign of Princess Turandot. After that build-up, her appearance on the stage is as striking as only Wilson's visual language can achieve, gliding in high above the stage on a platform, imperious, static, a fiery or bloody red against the cool backgrounds.
Wilson's stagecraft then is at once familiar as it is expressive to meet the specific demands of this particular opera. As well as extending the palette of colours considerably, there is also an expansion of the visual language Wilson traditionally employs, using beams of light that mark out the horizontal earthly boundaries of the stage as well as vertical beams that descend from the heavens and have chaotic branch-like formations. Even Turandot arrives floating on a platform bordered with light.
Wilson continues to use a minimum of stage props - almost none - preferring to use moving block of panels to close down or open up the stage to the emotional undercurrents and dramatic actions. Movement too is reduced to minimal actions and ritualised gestures. Like his production of Madama Butterfly, there's no Orientalism other than in the costumes, which have more of a classical ceremonial aspect than anything traditional. Additional expression however is used for characters, an all-gray Calaf sings 'Nessun Dorma' to a network of tangled roots, Turandot characterised by blazing reds and a giant black moon.
Like Nicola Luisotti's musical interpretation, it places emphasis on the moody qualities and character of the work, its sinister oriental refrains adding an edge of discord to the proceedings. And in many ways, Wilson serves the score best by not competing with it or underlining it, reducing any distraction or interpretation and permitting the extraordinary qualities of that powerful music room to be revealed. There are less of the director's usual eccentricities - even Ping, Pang and Pong are rather restrained here - with the strangest twist being Liù's stylised standing death, walking off-stage to the praises of the people of Peking, making it tragic in its own way.
The singing in this Teatro Real production in Madrid is good considering how challenging a work this is for all the main performers, Turandot an opera that requires Italian lyricism with Wagnerian depth and stamina. Gregory Kunde comes out best, unfailing in his efforts and secure in his 'Nessun dorma'. Iréne Theorin's Turandot doesn't have the fullness of voice across the range, but is suitably commanding and impressive in her account. There are good performances also from Yolanda Auyanet's Liù, Andrea Mastroni's Timur and from the opera's Ping, Pang and Pong.
It may not be the greatest performances you've heard of these roles, but opera is not a singing contest and you have to take live dramatic performance into account, particularly when you're dealing with the very specific constraints of a Robert Wilson production. I don't see it as the most insightful interpretation of Turandot either (the completion of the work still never entirely satisfactory), but Wilson's unique vision certainly does justice to Puccini and Alfano's score, as does the full-blooded musical performance under the direction of Nicola Luisotti, creating a unique dialectic with Wilson extraordinary visual imagery.
Links: Teatro Real
