BERIO’S ENDING OF PUCCINI’S TURANDOT OUTSHADOWED BY WACKY PRODUCTION Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin; October 15, 2003 The curtain rises on a wall of skeletons standing in boxes in ultraviolet light, symbolizing all the princes who have died thus far attempting to answer Turandot’s riddles. Timur, wrapped like a mummy with a shiny blue cape over his shoulders, sings much of his role from a prone position – fortunately, bass Alexander Vinogradov is vocally so stupendous that we can think the costume away. Ping, Pong and Pang show up in bulky blue, green and copper cartoon suits, like characters in Monsters Inc. The hoopla around the new production of Turandot at the Staatsoper focuses around Bernd Lepel’s costume and set design based on Japanese mangas and director Doris Dörrie’s trivialization of the dream of love. Dörrie, known to German audiences as a film director and short story writer, specializes in hapless encounters between men and women. Kent Nagano, who conducted the work’s first stage performance with the new Luciano Berio ending at the Los Angeles Opera House in May 2002, is at the helm here for six of the scheduled nine performances. In Act II, Scene 1, there’s something quite wonderful about the non-singing roles added to the fantasy of how wonderful life in China could be if only Turandot ceased beheading suitors: three easy women on pink mopeds with picnic baskets and a willingness to wrap themselves around the three Ps. We also finally experience virtuoso, frightening Sylvie Valayre as Turandot in a stiff and shiny black dress with jagged skirt and huge white teddy bear at her waist, her arms forming an extended index finger. This Turandot is a whirling dervish of intensity when she emerges from a towering white teddy bear with a pink, mirrored inside. The scenery and costumes do keep taking over but fortunately can’t completely drown out the riveting presence of Valayre and the expressive, nuanced, if occasionally weak singing of Dario Volonte as Calaf. The Staatskapelle sparkles convincingly under Nagano’s baton, colorful and accurate. Puccini left Turandot unfinished at his death in 1926 and the ending usually played was completed by his student Franco Alfano. The opera’s new ending consists of three and a half minutes composed by Luciano Berio. It manages to be bombastic and dissonant at the same time, offering waves of sound. Long passages are for orchestra alone. But here too the staging dominates: in a mock-up white kitchen, the vanquished Turandot changes into a dress à la track suit, Calaf takes a beer from the fridge, and she simultaneously embraces him and rolls her eyes at the audience. When the curtain falls, you get the feeling that something else still needs to happen. Further performances on Nov. 13 and 16. Nancy Chapple