Back in September, the SF Opera season opened with an eventful and
problematic "Turandot," conducted by Donald Runnicles and featuring an
immobile, not very musical Jane Eaglen in the title role, an indisposed
Jon Villars as Calaf, and Patricia Racette as a wonderful Liu.

Tonight, Chapter 2 of the "Turandot" run began with an eventful,
problematic and enjoyable performance.  It wasn't so much the sum
exceeding the parts as the total impact having little to do with what
happened play by play.  If experiencing opera was a matter of science,
that would make no sense whatsoever, but there is vastly more to the
genre than a scorecard.  Somehow, the bits and pieces - good and bad -
hung together.

Instead of Runnicles' superb conducting, tonight, it was the Kirov
Ballet's Alexander Polianichko with a blustery, stormy, sometimes
overwhelming reading (overwhelming the singers more than the audience),
but it all sounded involved and passionate...  not a bad deal for Puccini.

Audrey Stottler blew the walls down, but without huffing and puffing.
Accurate, if not beautiful, her Turandot has power in the Nilsson category,
and the sound is not nearly as mechanical as Eaglen's.  Were it not for
the memory in this house of some powerful AND beautiful performances
(Rysanek, Caballe, Marton of the '85 vintage), Stottler would be on top
of the list.  Norah Amsellem's Liu was vocally impressive, but dramatically
remote.

The evening's most complex performance came from Antonio Nagore.  Again,
overall, it was fine, but if you take it apart, you get another story.
He has four distinct voices and you never know which one will show up,
although there is a steady descent as time goes by.

Voice No.  1 is gorgeous; it comes mostly in soft passages, a sound to
treasure.  No.  2 is a brave, well-projected forte, not working well on
high notes, but impressive in the middle range.  No.  3 comes in brief
passages with tiny breaks in the voice, not really bad, but bothersome.
No.  4, unfortunately, is when the voice turns to mush.  This happened
towards the end of the evening, although Nagore managed - sort of - to
keep up with Stottler in the finale.

Were you to focus on Nagore's inconsistencies, it would have been a bad
night.  If you managed to hear the good and put up with the bad, well,
you can have a lot worse.

The old - and I mean old, after a decade of steady use - David Hockney
production (with Ian Falconer's "Chinese" fashion parade) still works.
Vast expanses of blood-red and lime green clash happily, the third act's
purple shadows are easy to get lost in.

Seattle Opera's Chris Alexander directed well, but left some strange
holes in the production, including a bland, motionless chorus (which
sang well tonight, but not with its usual precision and impact, probably
still getting used to Polianichko), and the Emperor's wobbly personal
elevator.

Janos Gereben/SF
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