Klaus Guth directed Turandot with Hasmik Grigoryan and Jonas Kaufmann at the Vienna State Opera. Review

The Vienna State Opera presented the premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, staged by the famous director Klaus Guth and conductor Marco Armigliato, with an unusual version of the finale and with big stars: Jonas Kaufmann and Hasmik Grigoryan, who sang Calaf and Turandot respectively for the first time in their careers. He talks about what happened Sergei Khodnev.

Klaus Guth at the Vienna State Opera, in contrast to the second opera house of the Austrian capital, Theater an der Wien, is an infrequent guest: his previous work at the Staatsoper was Wagner’s Tannhäuser, staged more than thirteen years ago and then received by the public, to put it mildly, chilly. Although “Tannhäuser” was conceived as an homage precisely to the Viennese tradition and the Viennese cultural climate of the 1890s – neuroses, stiffness, decadence.

“Turandot” now also has a lonely reference to Viennese realities. The director tells how he visited the memorial apartment of Sigmund Freud and was amazed to see what kind of entrance door he had installed: practically armored, with numerous locks and bolts. They say that psychoanalysis is psychoanalysis, but the feeling of insecurity and hypertrophied concern for one’s safety does not become less panicky. Freud’s door, enlarged to monumental proportions, is even present in the scenery for Turandot, created by Etienne Plusse.

There are no more specifics, temporal or geographical, in the performance, but there are traumatic fears, as well as attempts to get rid of them in various ways. Gut tried to make a chamber psychological drama out of Puccini’s huge opera, a terrible fairy tale about a bloodthirsty Chinese femme fatale.

The same white hall space, spare and uncomfortable, turns out to be a palace, a Beijing square, a garden, and a bedroom, where Turandot, dressed in white, like a bride, lives with her dolls (four performers in children’s dresses and creepy masks baby dolls). Apparently, it was not her high-born grandmother, about whose sad fate the princess sings in the aria “In questa reggia,” who became a victim of violence, but something happened to Turandot herself that deprived her of a sense of security and the ability to love. There is, on the one hand, something perversely girlish in the way she revels in maniacal acts of vengeance—as in the scene where she tenderly waltzes with the headless body of yet another prince who has failed to solve her three riddles.

On the other hand, out of this ill health grows a totalitarian-Kafkaesque grotesque. The conventional “Forbidden City” in Guth’s version is populated by identical officials who are happily busy fulfilling the bloody whims of the princess, and busily rush around with black boxes containing the heads of her victims. The same twins – all as if chosen in identical light green suits, red wigs and glasses – are also dressed up by the choristers, who, however, do not take part in what is happening: the magnificent chorus of the Vienna Opera in the first act simply sits in two rows on the proscenium, and later he sings from behind the stage, which from the musical side, admittedly, is rather disadvantageous. And the old Emperor Altoum, coughing up blood (Jörg Schneider’s Italian tenor sounds unexpectedly fresh) looks in the same spirit, only with a cane in his hand and an order ribbon over his shoulder. And three ministers (Hiroshi Amako – Pong, Norbert Ernst – Pang, Martin Hessler – Ping) – although they allow themselves to relax in seditious conversations, take off their hateful uniform and drink beer between the three of them with clown antics.

In this strange bloody booth, strangers dressed in black meet – Calaf, his blind father Timur, the faithful slave Liu. Neither Timur, in the faded performance of Dan Paul Dumitrescu, nor Liu, sung powerfully but without much lyricism by Christina Mkhitaryan, bring anything new to the interpretation of these images (it doesn’t even help that Liu is for some reason accompanied by three voiceless doubles: the expressiveness of this does not multiply). But the figure of Calaf, as well as the motives that guide him, also remain somewhat unclear. Partly, this is due to the unimpressive performance of Jonas Kaufmann, to whom both the role and the part are given without charm: the singer sounded tired and tense, regularly drowned in the orchestra, nailing the top notes with obvious effort. In terms of charm and musicality, Turandot Hasmik Grigoryan was a clear winner – without metal in her voice, but with rare artistic precision, volume, taste and amazing projection of sound that easily covered the orchestra even in the bloodiest climaxes.

Conductor Marco Armigliato chose the finale written after Puccini’s death by composer Franco Alfano, but not the one that is performed most often, but its first version, which is more extensive. At one time, it was rejected by Arturo Toscanini, and, as it turned out, not without reason: even in Armigliato’s colorful and energetic performance, the finale seemed drawn out and watery. This composer’s version does not soften the harshness and unnaturalness of the transition from the gloomy scene of Liu’s death to the final deafening triumph of the loving Calaf, and the director interprets Turandot’s wonderful metamorphosis rather formally. The princess suddenly softens, suddenly forgets about her traumas and fears, suddenly agrees to end the matter with an honest feast and a wedding; The official ceremony begins, the lovers are seated in chairs, but the lover Turandot cannot stand it, grabs Calaf by the hand and impulsively runs away from the stage with him. With Hasmik Grigoryan, this happy impetuosity at least turns out to be natural and convincing, like the rest of the role, which constitutes the living nerve of a cold, heady and abstract production.