Read what our audiences have to say about Turandot
Review by Colin James
Liu really should have listened to Timur when he urged her to flee the scene. At first I thought he was being a bit hasty - the cafe set looked fabulous and I thought we were in for a clever, quirky production. But then the designer decided to cram every creative idea he had ever had onto the stage, all at once. It was like Blade Runner set on the Island of Dr Moreau.
Angela Echalaz was truly wonderful and frankly just sang everyone else off the stage. Poor Kirsten Blanck sang marvellously and is a great actress but had to fight her way through a crowd in a bridezilla frock. OK, you don't always have to wheel them on on a platform, but she could have had an entrance. And sadly for her, of course, she really only gets one big number before she has to slog her way through the dreary nonsense in the last act.
Good performances by t he singers handicapped by incoherent design and ham-fisted direction. A man bleeding to death in the end! Did the director think we would all otherwise think it was a romantic comedy?
Review by Peter Smith
oh. I love opera. I love puccini. I love the raw, overpowering intensity of it. The way it smacks you in the face with sheer emotion and no pretence of intellectual artistry. And...ah...then there is the ENO and Turandot. Then there is triple Elvis and motorcyle helmets and tank tops. And somehow, somewhere in this oh-so-clever production the frog has been dissected and and put back together and the soul is simply no longer there. I'm sorry. I'm sure it was very clever; very artistic; very subtle even. And, in truth, I guess I did feel like crying.
Review by Nic Stuchfield
Wonderful Opera - Dreadful production! I went to see Turandot last night with my wife and 16-year-old daughter. As ever the plot and the delicious Puccini score continue to delight. However, I can only describe the production as utterly dire. Why is Turandot set in a modern Chinese restaurant? I can think of a number of Operas that have been very successfully recast into modern circumstances. This tends to work where there is an underlying logic that demonstrates the continuity of the plot line through different times and cultures. The famous Miller Rigoletto and Tosca under Italian fascism both exemplify this idea. The result is to leave the viewer thoughtfully pondering the cleverness of the juxtaposition.
However, last night's production had none of that. It just seemed to be a resetting for the sake of it: a desperately failed attempt to be different. What was the point of having chefs running round with what looked like pig's heads instead of human ones? What role did the writer play that enhanced the production? His last act writhing was a bizarre and utterly stupid distraction to the real action. As for the glittering bimbos prancing out of the fridge as the finale began ... well, what can one say?
The sets were unimpressive, the costumes were banal (if I were a Chelsea pensioner I would be pretty upset to be associated with this production) and the stage direction mainly wooden. This was the first time that our 16 year old had been to the Opera as a discerning adult (after a long ago visit to see the Flute) and although impressed with the music was underwhelmed by the spectacle. Don't bother going to see this production.
Read review by Simon Townsend
I attended Turandot on Saturday with my two boys (10 and 12)and wife. I am a friend of ENO and attend regularly and I had read the mixed reviews of Turandot.
But I thought it an exceptional production. My younger son said, "that wasn't a bad opera Dad". That is great success in my view.
Although I did find the activities and dress of the chorus at times a little "over the top", the singing was superb and I liked the inclusion of the writer and girl, who were both very effective. The theme "ruined childhood" was well communicated.
Read review by Roy Hiscock
I saw Turandot last night (12 December - the last performance). I have to agree with the comments of others: on the whole, musically very good, but - except for one point - I could not see what the producer was trying to say. The exception (and this is a guess on my part) was about the writer, who was slain at the point where (in Toscanini's famous words at the premiere, when he stopped the performance at the death of Liu) "the Maestro laid down his pen".
Read review by Harald E.Hirthe
We, (my 2 friends and I) where in London for my Birthday. So we booked the best tickets for "Turandot". The orchestra was fantastic, the singers where very good. The sets and the kostums and the staging was a scandal!!!!!! We almost left after the first ten minutes, but then we decided to see the terrible show to the end.
I must say that most of the time we go to the Royal Opera, but have seen a wonderful " Mikado" in your house, thats why we decided to come again. I think that was the last time, because we will never know what the next scandal will be. Especially Alex who came along to the Opera for the first time said he would never go to see one again. I mean really....... Turandot the princess coming down the kitchen stairs...... 89,00 Pounds for seeing Elvis and other freaks.... no.
PS: We had to get drunk later
Read review by Michael
I'm sorry to read the bad reviews of this production, which I really enjoyed. Compared to the last time I saw Turandot, it was a revelation - far more moving, far more exciting. I left thinking it was perhaps Puccini's greatest achievement, and one of the great works of its era. I hope the ENO won't be too put off by the negative reactions and bear in mind that a lot of people disagree. At the moment the proliferation of blogs, feedback, "Web 2.0" in general seems to be having an alarmingly conservative effect. It's great to be in touch with your audience, but you can't create art by plebiscite.
I don't understand why people pretend not to understand when the story is told in a different era, or with a narrator who gets involved. It's been part of storytelling for centuries. Last time I saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat the costumes and sets were modern (they were "period" in the original version), and narrator got involved in the action. I don't remember anyone complaining about that production. The piece ain't great, admittedly, but if five-year-olds can handle these simple theatrical techniques, can't we?
Read review by Gillian Towers
I am not necessarilly a traditionalist and often enjoy breaking away from traditional operas and ballets but can't emphasise enough how dreadful I thought the recent production of Turandot was. Beautiful music and singing completely ruined by a stupid gimmicky and pointless production. It not only missed the whole point of the story,the ending on stage with the silent writer taking centre was farcical. It seemed to be change for change's sake and was just gimmicky light weight rubbish. Sorry, but why on earth you allowed this to happen just beggars belief. It's hard to imagine that the singers didn't revolt!
Read review by John Rogers
A truly great performance - musically! But what a shame about the production! Setting the action in a modern Chinese restaurant just didn't make any sense, if it had been a "play within a play" with the diners as audience watching a performance of an ancient drama, I could have stomached (!) it, but really the setting and the costumes were just a distraction - as was the poor Prince of Persia wandering around naked prior to his execution (thankfully off stage!). And although extremely well performed, the role of the "Writer" was totally unnecessary and I had no idea what point was being made by the producer in adding that role and his extended death scene in the closing minutes of the opera really did distract from what should have been the focus - the final duet of Turand ot and Calaf. But, as I indicated at the beginning of this review, musically the performance was stunning. Ed Gardner, the orchestra and chorus were on top form, as were the principals. I thought that Ping (Benedict Nelson), Richard Roberts (Pang) and Christopher Turner (Pong) took a little time to warm up vocally (not surprising with the antics they were required to get up to!) but their Act 2 extended trio was superb. James Cresswll was a a respectable Timur, but really looked more like a brother to Calef than father! Kirsten Blanck as Turandot has the power for the part and gave us the decibels we expect from a good Turandot, and "melted" nicely at the end. Gwyn Hughes Jones was excellent and gave us a powerfully sung Calaf. But the outstanding performance of the evening on stage came from Amanda Echalaz, who sang (and acted) superbly as Liu. Her two arias were the highlights of the evening, she is a real stage creature with a fabulous soprano voice which can easily ride a Puccini orchestra going at full pelt! I can't wait to hear and see her Tosca next Spring/Summer, and I hope we will get to see a lot more of her at the Coliseum in the years ahead! In fact she reminded me of a young Josephine Barstow! And for the record, perhaps the most dramatic feature of the evening on stage was the tumble that Ed Gardner took when he took his bow; clearly he slipped on some liquid that had been left on stage (the blood of the "Writer"? the poison taken by Liu?), but he recovered and was helped back to his fee by Blanck and Echalaz. Hopefully there was no permanent damage!
Read review by Anthony O'Neil
I had neither seen nor heard the opera before, nor read the programme, but I knew the story. We were transfixed by the opening Act but for all the wrong reasons.
The set was teeming with characters and dancers in motley costumes who seemed to be without any intelligible direction. A mystery man in a white suit - reminiscent of Martin Bell - wandered about taking notes. More people (courtiers) arrived via what seemed to be the swing doors of a Chinese restaurant kitchen - an incongruous place for royalty to loiter. Chefs with machetes doubled as executioners, a bunch of "suger plum fairies" cavorted about as if they had never encountered a choreographer in their lives.
When Turandot finally arrived she bore un uncanny re semblance to Frida Kahlo.
It was as if Gilbert and Sullivan had joined forces with Strictly Come Dancing and Pirates of the Caribbean ... confusing, distracting and totally out of keeping with a sombre fairytale. Also, staging that was a willful waste of resources and budget at a time of austerity for the arts.
All this might have been forgiven if we had been treated to magnificent singing, but sadly not. Only Liu gave a suitably touching and lyrical account of her role. The Prince was as drab as his dark blue raincoat and managed to seem wholly disinterested throughout. At times, during ardent passages, he was separated from his beloved by half the width of the stage, or immersed in the crowd. Turandot was overloud and lacking in subtlety.
We could have happily strangled the little girl who tripped across the stage from time to time. But she was only marginally less irritating than the wretched dancers and "our foreign corr espondent" who was wholly extraneous to the plot. By the time he was inadvertently disembowled by Turandot in the closing scene, one could only wish it had happened two hours earlier.
The orchestra played Puccini's complex and innovative score with suitable verve and enthusiasm.
Please send this Director back to learn his craft elsewhere and spend ENO's money more prudently in future.
Read review by Fernando & Barbara
We flew all the way from Madrid to see "Turandot" and we end up in a chineese restaurant with pigs, Elvis, clowns and a naked man at the stage, how could that happened? Where is Puccini´s essence?
Liu, Turandot and Timus save the play with their incredible voices surrounded by the magnificient orchestra.
Read review by Margaret Hart
Turandot is an opera I have seen many times always with pleasure - except for last night(22.11.09) when I was glad when it ended and sat unable to clap. It was a truly unpleasant experience. Where we the lovely lyrical passages about gardens in Hunan etc? Stuck on a fire escape with black bags. Why was the emperor a wino - luckily he sang true to the music, not to the strange conception of this production. The "writer" device cheapened the whole thing from the moment Timur is prompted to put on the glasses and become blind. And the gore of the virtually disembowelled writer writhing about before a completely oblivious Turandot and Calaf was utterly sickening. My husband would have written too but could not bear to think about this production again. I would not see it again if I were offered £500 to do so. My husband and I are Friends of ENO but not for much longer if productions are going to be like this. Finally, the orchestra was not playing together and the volume was consistently too loud with no contrasts.
Read review by Klaus Bergmann
This opera pretends to a grandeur it has not got, a sort of Chinese Mikado with capital punishment. Therefore it does not come amiss if the production tries to make a point of its own, however this production seemed pointles. The scenery and costumes did not represent any consistent idea or period. It ranged from modern masterchefs and Chelsea pensioners to various forms of chinoiserie. A serious modern dress production, reflecting the thoughtless cruelty of a totalitarian regime, might have said something of interest, this did not.
Read review by Tatijana
Admittedly, I was not expecting to be confronted by 3 Elvis' in the opening scene and at first I was as fascinated by the costumes as I was by the production itself. However, I soon found myself enthralled and this was undoubtedly the best opera I have ever seen, and I am sure will ever see. It was captivating from start to finish. I was totally gripped. Thank you for such a great experience!
Read review by Alex Torres
How refreshing and enjoyable to see an opera production that, without destroying the original plot, makes a really powerful statement about today's society and norms!
Challenging it may have been for some - perhaps for those who did not want to give the well-worn plot a second thought, or for those who see opera as nothing much more than a repetition of the same old musical scores, as a vehicle for comparing notes on the attributes of the various singers.
But...for those who see opera as a vibrant theatrical form that has a rightful place in modern society, integrating all that is best from the worlds of music, theatre and dance, then Rupert Goold's "Turandot" at English National Opera is an absolute delight. Goold's production is brimming with ideas and detail: so much so that I suspect it is difficult for anyone to come away after one sitting and assume that they fully understand the message that the director is trying to convey. Is this a bad thing? No, not in my view: it allows one to continue to think about the opera and the issues raised by the production in the days following a performance; in this way enhancing the actual viewing experience. Perhaps because of this demanding aspect, Goold's modern Chinese restaurant setting has come in for some facile criticism, borne of a superficial engagement with the performance. Engage, and you will be rewarded!
Goold's use of additional characters, in particular of "the writer", allows for a vicious commentary on the state of our society today, and of the way that it is manipulated by the media. The portrayal of societal icons is particularly effective in the way that it is integrated into the opera's plot. Some of Goold's images are memorable - amongst them the exchange of icons at the end of Act 2 and "the writer" handi ng the instruments of Liu's torture to Ping, Pang and Pong in Act 3; as well as many others. You have to be attentive, observant; it is only as Goold's ideas develop that some of the pieces of his jig-saw begin to fall into place, such as the writer himself sounding the gong at the end of the Act 1 finale, rather than Calaf. A criticism of the production might be that some of these subtleties will only be understood by those with a deep familiarity with Turandot's plot, but there remains enough for plot novices to grasp also.
The musical standard of this production is extremely high. Gwyn Hughes Jones makes a superb Calaf, singing with power and a suave timbre - gorgeous. The rest of the principal cast are also strong: I enjoyed Kirsten Blanck's portrayal of the title role, her rendition of the difficult score was not too piercing; and Amanda Echalaz's and James Cresswell's playing of Liu and Timur was equally good. Ping, Pang and Pong were probably the weakest element of the musical production - also taking into consideration the excellent choral and orchestral performances - and this was a pity as the production would otherwise have been totally perfect.
As it was, it was simply stunning! One of the best evenings of opera I've ever experienced. Thank you to ENO for taking a chance with Mr Goold and please can we see more of him in the future!
Read review by Christopher Joubert
The orchestra and chorus are superb, but this production of Turandot is probably the worst I have seen of any opera; worse even than the ENO Siegfried - and that is saying something. What is so bad about it is not just the inappropriateness of the settings (bad enough) or the wooden handling of the principals (also bad enough), but the irrelevant and distracting clutter -characteristic of neophyte opera directors, but taken to a new extreme here - with the little girl and, worst of all, the "Writer", who persistently interferes with the action and grossly upstages the action at the climax of the opera; not to mention the three Elvis impersonators, the two American golfers and Nancy Reagan. Did the ENO not think of showing Rupert Goold its David Alden productions - models of paring down and focus on the essentials - bef ore it let him loose on his own production? Even the programme made no effort to explain this absurd vision of Turandot, but helped us to understand where the director came from with its seemingly random insertion of pictures of some of the most meretricious productions of Damien Hirst.
Read review by Ian Wilson
After this performance I wondered why I go to the ENO at all. My wife,a discerning opera lover, looking for something she enjoyed, said she found it colourful - a bit like going to a restaurant and only being able to say that the food was 'nice and hot'. There was little good about this production - it hovered on the edge of full blooded surrealism based on the 'writers' fevered imagination but delivered this with such lamentable contradictions that any semblance of coherent plot development, or indeed logic , were lost. Truly risible stuff that left the audience bemused (judging by the comments all around) and disappointed. The music was never given a chance to speak for itself despite wonderful performances by the orchestra and chorus(the only truly great parts of the whole thing). The principals did their best in these difficult circu mstances to lift the evening beyond the banal - but banal it remained. It shows quite a lot of contempt for the audience on the part of ENO management to allow something this awful to go ahead. What's the plan to reduce the liklihood of this lapse in quality happening again? What has been learnt?
Read review by Luciano
One of the worst plays ever seen. Ok I understand you want to translate it in english, and that' fair, but Tenor Caleff was inconsitent, nessun dorma completely spoiled. Not to mention the overall performance of Turnadot: good voice no feeling no emption no passion no phatos. (Booooo) More tham accptable performance instead by Liù and Caleff's father.
In addition, production could not have made a better choice to spoil the show and the story than play it in a chineese restaurant.. Usless blood and cruelty on stage.
Definitely the worst paly. I understand why you only perform 14 plays... What a sad evening.
Read review by Ian Tunbridge
Turandot is an opera I like alot - possibly the most stirring singing and music of any of Puccini's operas. The singing in the current production is quite superb, and the orchestra is on sparkling form. But I have NEVER ,EVER felt so toally disengaged from an opera by its utterly appaling staging. I have re rarely had to sit through such a pointless staging that added absolutely nothing to the opera. It got so bad I ended up listiening to the music with my eyes closed. ENO please don't go back to being trendy for the sake of it! This a truely stupendous muscial production utterly marred by a ghastly staging.
Read review by Ernst Petz
Whenever I´m in London (from Vienna) I try to see as much ENO as possible, since the sixties (then Sadler´s Wells, if I remember rightly) I´ve never been disappointed - until this utterly stupid Turandot-production. Whatever the intention of the director might have been, it should have been stopped by some kind of creative supervisor (and there has to be someone like that in every opera-house, I suppose). Even in the stadium of a first idea the setting of this opera in a chinese restaurant is just silly, the introduction of a sort-of-journalist (the process of getting rid of him ultimately destroyed the finale of the opera completely, after he got stabbed, with his blood-stained dancing & stumbling around even the music of Puccini could not re-create a feeling for the story any more) is just foolish - both of these clumsy attempts to be &qu ot;innovative" have absolutely nothing to do with creativity or an artistic new insight or whatever. This HAS to do with the helplessness of a would-be director, who doesn´t understand the role, let alone the power of music in an operatic work (and this side of the production, especially the orchestra & conducting was really first class), maybe he even hates opera, because he doesn´t understand it ...
Until now I thought, this destruction of the genre opera is a speciality of the german-speaking countries("Regietheater"), a fact, Zefirelli stated some 20, 30 years ago, with hordes of directors, who are unable to comprehend & direct a story, who just glue one picture, one "event" to the next.
You - ENO - should´nt follow that path. Your productions are appreciated by your public even(!) if they are good, so why not keep it that way?
The day before Turandot I saw The Turn of the Screw: What a difference, what a splendi d production ... and what a deep fall just 24 hours later.
Read review by Graham John Morris
I have been to the ENO well over 100 times. Last evening I listened to your new production of Turandot. I sum up my position as:
'It is very difficult to kill wonderful music and superb singing. Last night's Director nearly achieved this!'
Well done the Company. Can the Director explain why we had - dancing pigs, Elvis impersinations, a nude and a US cop, let alone a writer?
Read review by Thurstan
This was an absolutely terrrible production. I cannot think of anything good to say about it. Had I known in advance how bad it would be I would not have spent the money.
I do not recommend this to anyone.
Read review by Chris Baldwin
Fab third act, but the first act had toooo much happening, and the second too little. What is the point of the pigs with the cleavers and the roving reporter?
Read review by Robin I Morgan
This production was proof that you can set an opera completely out of time and context, and in a milieu which hardly seems relevant, and still make the concept work, even if it's not how the composer would have imagined it. In this context, Mr Loy (whose Tristan and Isolde I have just seen at Covent Garden, and whom I suspect suffered from an overdose of Freud, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in his youth, and whose career has mainly been in German opera houses) has a lot to learn from Mr Rupert Goold, who has a wide track record in straight theatre, musicals and opera, so probably has a better nose for what will play well with the public, and what he can get away with. However, where Loy has a vast empty space in which his characters make minimalist gestures (slumping in chairs, arms akimbo, kicking shoe s off), Goold goes for the grand extravaganza. This produces great spectacle with lots of detail and action, but deflects attention from the music and the actual drama. But it is still more fun to watch.
Most serious opera-goers would have no trouble in writing an essay on "Did Puccini Dislike Women": his frequent mistresses and the treatment of his heroines would imply that he at least held women in contempt. Turandot is the summit of this misogyny and present the director with a serious problem: how to sustain interest and empathy in two seriously unpleasant characters. On the positive side, Puccini has provided some superbly tuneful and in many places ravishingly beautiful music.
Mr Goold's non-cerebral and very physical solution is to take a leaf out of Peter Greenaway's book, or rather film (The Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover),and set the whole thing in a Chinese restaurant. Before the curtain rises there is a table in front of the curtain, stage right at which sits the Writer (an introduced character reminiscent of Christopher Isherwood and I Am a Camera). The curtain rises of a large and busy Chinese restaurant dominated by red and gold. (Given what happens to some of the customers, I wondered whether Wong Kei's in Soho, where people go to be abused by the waiters, was the model.) All the tables have skulls on them as centrepieces: at first I thought they were monkeys' heads delicacies, but I suspect they represented some of Turandot's victims - the programme nodded to Damien Hirst's diamond encrusted skull, For the Love of God, but I shall not start on him). It becomes clear that the diners are all individually dressed in outlandish outfits and uniforms from punk rockers through nuns to Chelsea Pensioners. Half a dozen or more diners are singled out and play mime parts, like the Writer, in the action, though I never figured out their significance, or why so many were Elvis-lookalikes. Ping, Pa ng and Pong (who were vocally suffering: one was an understudy, the other acted while the part was sung from the wings) come on as waiters. Into this milieu, Calaf, in unassuming suit (how unlike Mr Cameron), Timur, ex-king of Tartary, and Liu (clearly the audience favourite from the ovation she deservedly received for her aria about her feelings for Calaf) appear like death's heads at the feast. However, there are plenty more heads than theirs to be played with. The Prince of Persia's being the current favourite. Having failed to answer the riddles, he loses first his clothes, running round half naked before being removed to the kitchen for Halal treatment. Shortly afterwards a little girl in bridal white and hollow eyes rushes in with a doll's head which she presents to the Writer. He appears to be taking notes of what is going on, but more and more begins to assist the action. When Calaf announces his candidacy for Turandot's challenge, he strikes the acceptance go ng.
Act II starts on the back stairs of the restaurant, with Ping, Pang and Pong, assisted by the writer, shift black sacks of kitchen waste, assisted by the Writer, and sing of going home to get away from the continuous executions. The next scene is back in the restaurant with the customers all seated to one side and the aged Emperor Altoun seated atop a pile of table to preside over the contest, having failed to persuade Calaf that his love-at-first sight for his daughter may be seriously misplaced, along with his head. Turandot enters in a white bridal dress matching the little girl's (who is presumably her childhood self) and having expressed her views on men (she is avenging the rape and murder of a distant ancestor), poses the riddles. At each correct answer, the significant characters at the back unroll scrolls of confirmation. Having answered all three questions, Turandot belies her Irish ancestry and declares that result void. Not wishing to estran ge his beloved, Calaf sets his own riddle: he will release her from matrimony if she discovers his name by morning.
Act III is set in the restaurant kitchens, with dismembered bodies of failed contestants hanging from the ceiling (in a nod to a piece of modern Chinese art), numerous heads on shelves, and lots of knives on the walls. The diners are going frantic as they all face death if Calaf's name is not discovered. (There is something illogical here, because if the name is not discovered, she becomes Calaf's wife and he would be unwise to slaughter the town as a first love offereing.) Calaf comes in and sings the insomniac's song Ken Russell brilliantly represented in the film, Aria ). Timur and Liu are then dragged in, and Liu is tortured by Ping, Pang and Pong (with help from the Writer) but she refuses to reveal the name of her beloved, killing herself by drinking industrial disinfectant rather than stabbing herself as Puccini wanted. This act of love softens Turandot who then yields to Calaf's entreaties, to the relief of the diners. The waiters can now return home.
The orchestra seemed to be thoroughly enjoying itself making as much noise as possible without worrying too much about any subtleties in the score: it certainly had one humming the tunes, though one feared a Health and Safety expert in the audience might stand up and complain (rather like the gentleman in Caen about stage nudity). The singing too was of a high, ensemble, standard (the waiters apart, for understandable reasons. Stuart Kale's Altoun was particularly affecting in the second act. Gwyn Hughes Jones as Calaf was slightly hampered by being inconspicuously dressed, but he was always musical. He wisely did not try to emulate the Three Tenors in THAT song but rather saved himself for his final duet with Kirsten Blanck's Turandot. She has of course a notoriously difficult first entrance, not appearing until the middle of Act II, then starting full belt with In questa reggia, which she played safe rather than risking all on an opening fortissimo. However, she soon built up power but without over-exposing herself. According to the audience, singing honours went to Amanda Echalaz's Liu who certainly knew how to wring her listeners' withers.
Overall there was too much to take in at one go, so one hopes the production gets revived, though probably not too often as its idiosyncrasies are not as lasting as the good Dr Miller's.
Oh, at the end, the Writer gets disembowelled by Turandot. And one hoped that the little girl doesn't suffer nightmares afterwards from all the stage butchery. I'll stick to takeaways now.
Read review by Ghie
The singing and orchestra in Turandot were great, but what a dreadful production ! Hearing people laugh when the curtain rises for act 3, and the boos at the end for the production team were well deserved. Anyway, I'll be back but not for Turandot !
Read review by Michael Gaughran
I was in the audience for the first night of Rupert Goold's Turandot. Brilliant singing by the principals and chorus, superb playing from the orchestra as always, but the production? Oh dear, what a disappointment. Although visually arresting it added nothing to the music and consisted almost entirely of irrelevant gimmicks, some of which, especially the reporter wandering around as though he was in the wrong show, were just plain silly. Anybody seeing an opera for the first time, in a production like this, would have no idea of the composer's original conception of the opera. Why set the opera in a Chinese restaurant, with a mixture of costumed characters who would be entirely out of place in mythical China? Tickets for ENO are expensive - buying one shouldn't be such a risk! Can a production like this ever be revived - i n both senses of the word?
Read review by Chris Summerfield
AN INSULT TO PUCCINI
I went to ENO last night to see Turandot as well as to hear it. I thought musically it was excellent, well sung and the orchestra sounded great but the production was disgusting, like a rubbishy pantomime, making a farce of Puccini's magnificent music. If he was writing for a pantomime the music would have been different. At the grinding of the sword 2 chefs enter with kitchen knives - are we supposed to laugh ? What was the point of the man in the cream suit apart from distracting us ? At the climax of the drama when Calaf is melting Turandot's heart with a kiss we had to watch the man in the cream suit scrabbling on the floor with some pig like creature. What was the point of the litle girl in the white dress ? I could name a dozen other absurdities. I left feeling cross but mainly sad that performers and audience had to put up with such rubbish. Yet another example of a producer's egotism ruining a great opera.
Read review by Robert Granger
By all means let's have productions which are contemporary and resonate with current culture - but in Turandot your debut director, Rupert Goold, has taken the piss: out of the themes of Puccini's opera; out of the audience, who are visually battered with ludicrous imagery, making little or no sense; and out of what must be a very weak artistic directorship at Eno.
A contemporary Chinese setting - or even a non-Chinese one - could provide a fruitful platform to play out the grand scale and intimate drama of the plot. But a chinese restaurant with a medley of people costumed from several different sources of dressing-up trunks, does not a serious or engaging scenario make.
Singing and playing,I'm glad to say, were excellent. But £80 a seat punters have a right to expect more than a hi-fi demo, which is all th at can be usefully gained given the imperative of keeping one's eyes closed if the integrity of the opera is to be rescued.
