Last week we saw Barber of Seville, and I haven't got too much to say about it, except that I liked it but am not tempted to go see it again. People say the Barber is one of the masterpieces of comic opera, but I remain unconvinced (even within the composer’s oeuvre, I prefer L‘Italiana in Algieri). I've always struggled a bit with Rossini; even at the acme of my indulgence for twittery sopranos and bathodrama, I had a hard time making it through a whole Rossini recording, comic or tragic. Every ten-measure passage he writes is excellent, but his entire arias and acts and operas are too sprawling for me. They always feel like enormous and very wrong dinosaurs, assembled from each and every wonderful bone in the fossil bed, not a single treasure omitted, third head or fifth backbone though it be. That said, however, Barber came across much better on stage for me than it has on recording, and all the cheap slapstick really helped. Figaro was very fun, exophthalmic and vocally fine, though rather leering and sniggering. The harpsichordist for the recitatives was placed on the edge of the stage, and idle characters would sometimes go to him for commiseration or, in one case, kisses. Continuo musicians need love too!
The soul has a faculty with which it mediates experience, filters it, judges it, contemplates it at a distance, prevents it from gaining unimpeded access to our inner hearts. Thank God we have it; but if ever we want it to turn off, it's at a live opera performance. This faculty only turned off once for me during Barber of Seville: during Don Basilio's aria La Calunnia, Slander! The bass had good power and presence, the stage went dark, half a dozen creepy Don Basilio clones emerged from holes in the scenery and skulked about, the singer piled on sadistic Machiavellian delight in causing a man's unjust downfall, right up to the cannon-shot climax. If I could have played any role that night, it would have been Don Basilio.
Barber was all very well, but Turandot last night was awesome! It helped that we arrived in leisurely and luxuriant fashion, enjoying a tailgate meal of rice and squid and ginger beer beneath the aforementioned Miltonian atmosphere. Jack wore her lovely chinoiserie gown, with green and purple eye makeup that made her look like a sorceress in a Kung-Fu movie, or possibly a cuttlefish (I find both attractive): an apt outfit for an odd, out-of-control opera production. Most newspapers who have reviewed this Turandot have done nothing but complain and whine about the lurid staging, but they just don't want to have fun. One does not go to Turandot for subtle, understated realism; lurid is the whole essence of both plot and music.
The first act staging must have been a real joy for the props guys: there were six or seven severed heads on stakes around the stage, each with individual facial features and clearly in several stages of decomposition. The costumes were pretty far out, in eye-watering colors, a sort of Manchurian tyranny cum space barbarian aesthetic. It all made me think of John Derbyshire's description of a Brittany Spears concert: "The sort of entertainment provided by the gaudier kind of Oriental despot for the enjoyment of the coarser kind of barbarian conqueror."
Hallucinatory though it was, the production did achieve a real creepiness, an undeniable and horrifying sense of just how twisted Peking had become through Turandot's murderous virginity. Timur, Calaf and Liu seemed very isolated and far from home in their subtler, more elegant costumes: unnerved strangers speaking sense (well, Timur and Liu anyway) amidst a hideous culture obsessed with ritual torture. "We'll embroider your skin with our knives."
The Chinese aren't all bad, of course. Ping, Pang and Pong were really excellent, singing with vim and wearing hats with long feathers that I will covet for the rest of my life. Their numbers added genuine comic relief while adding a measure of creepiness at the same time: "Well, let's go enjoy another torture." Their nostalgia for pre-Turandot China was serendipitously present in the vocally lethargic Emperor, who came across as though he very much wished he were emperor of absolutely anywhere else. I couldn't help but imagine him thinking, "Beheading my daughter's suitors sounded like a corking idea when she brought it up, and the first eight or ten were sure a lot of fun, but they keep coming, the heads are taking over the palace, they sing in the night... Whatever's to be done?!"
It was a loony production, but Jack and I loved it, and Odious would have too. The two leads were excellent singers, really belting out the Wagnerian bits; Liu's voice was tender and lovely and sympathetic and really made Calaf look like an ass; Timur was perfect. My only gripe was the somewhat ponderous choreography, which often required Calaf to belt out his money notes facing 180 degrees away from the character he was addressing. But overall, well, the opera's wonderfully bonkers to begin with, and I am not at all disappointed to have seen an equally bonkers production.
Mozart's Lucio Silla in two weeks!
