patrikpen: Turandot for Children in Music and Vision 22 May

domenica 17 luglio 2016

Turandot for Children in Music and Vision 22 May

Turandot for Children

GIUSEPPE PENNISI investigates
a Puccini production with
one hundred and fifty performances in twelve months

Many opera goers will be surprised to learn that, this season, one single production of Giacomo Puccini's well-known Turandot is scheduled for one hundred and fifty performances over about twelve months. It is a joint effort of the Associazione Lirica di Como (AsLiCo) with its lovely Teatro Sociale, the world famous Teatro Liceu of Barcelona, and of the elegant Theater Magdeburg, with a catchment area from Hanover to Leipzig. Readers would be even more astonished to learn that this Turandot production is especially tailored for children. As mentioned on other occasions (eg 'Far from Traditional', 27 July 2015), even though the libretto indicates that the action is 'in China at the time of the fairy tales', the opera is far from a fairy tale: it is a crude demonstration of power and cruelty versus innocence, not an abstract joke like in Busoni's opera of the same title, drawn from the same eighteenth century play by Carlo Gozzi. Also, the libretto is full of Freudian sexual overtones, and the score is almost expressionistic, similar to that of post-romantic composers approaching the second Viennese school.

Along with its regular opera season as part of the Lombardy lyric circuit, AsLiCo has, for twenty years, had a special program to prepare future generations of opera listeners. Called Opera Domani, this quite successful program is addressed at various categories of youngsters, including elementary school children aged between six and eleven. Over the last few years, other European theatres have joined in with AsLiCo.

On 16 May 2016, I attended a performance for 6-11 year old pupils in the 2,000 seat Teatro Olimpico in Rome. The children are not only part of the audience, but take an active role in the performance as they are trained by their teachers to sing some of the choral parts from their orchestra seats. They are also made to wear some simple Chinese paper masks.

A scene from AsliCo's 'Turandot, Principessa Falena' in Rome. Photo © 2016 Alessia Santambrogio

The opera is necessarily cut. With some eight hundred children in the theater, it would be difficult to handle them during intermissions. Thus, this Turandot, Principessa Falena ('Turandot, Princess Moth') is a one-act opera where the action develops entirely in a wood. With the exception of Calaf, Liù and Timor, all the characters are insects of the wood, including Ping, Pong and Pang (three cockroaches) and the messenger (a turtle).

Irena Bottura in the title role of AsliCo's 'Turandot, Principessa Falena' in Rome. Photo © 2016 Alessia Santambrogio

Turandot is closed in her knot until she appreciates the meaning of love. The stage sets (by Michele Olcese), costumes (Massimo Carlotto) and lighting (Marco Alba) as well as the projections (by Nadia Baldi and Federico Biancalani) are extremely effective in creating the atmosphere of the wood and its changes in the most topical parts of the opera: Liù's death, and Turandot unfolding her knot. They can easily fare well in comparison with sets in major opera houses. The audience, especially the youngest spectators, were really fascinated.

The orchestra was, of course, 'lightened' as compared with Puccini's original score. In the pit, young conductor Massimo Palumbo did a very professional job.

In Turandot, voices have a prominent role. AsLiCo is also a training institution for young singers. In order to hold one hundred and fifty performances, three casts will travel in Italy, Spain and Germany. On 16 May, the three masks — ie Ping (Andrea Zaupa), Pang (Ruzil Gatin) and Pong (Mattia Muzio) — were top-notch.