Turandot tweaked for era of #MeToo
Director of COC’s season opener stages opera to reflect women’s empowerment in original tale
When a strong-minded, independent woman responds to a man’s overheated love, is it because she has let it happen, or is it because she has given in to his power?
Our 21st-century selves want it to be all about permission — that those who submit are, in fact, yielding to an abuse of power.
Most people don’t go to the opera for lessons in such things, but these lessons are often embedded in the stories we witness on stage. “Turandot” is a vivid case in point. It contains several hugely popular arias, including “Nessun Dorma,” a touchstone for operatic tenors. One can go see it for the music and the singers alone, and have a great time.
But what is the message that goes with the gorgeous music in “Turandot”?
When the curtain rises at the Four Seasons Centre on Saturday night, it will have been nearly 16 years since the Canadian Opera Company dared to tackle this tricky, final work by Italian Giacomo Puccini.
Veteran American opera and theatre director Robert Wilson has taken the challenge of the ending of “Turandot,” at this point in our cultural history very seriously.
His heavily stylized production tells us clearly that he doesn’t buy into the notion of female capitulation either.
Neither Turandot nor Liu, a young woman in love with Calaf, get a traditional rendering
“Turandot is the red line through the whole opera,” Wilson explains. In his approach, she begins the story alone and ends it alone.
Left with only the sketch of a conclusion when Puccini died of complications from treatment for throat cancer on Nov. 29, 1924, “Turandot” has challenged directors since the beginning.
The opera is set in a mythical China — as imagined by Europeans. But the original story is from medieval Persia. Turandot, the titular princess, is central Asian, not Chinese. The story was introduced to Europe by a French writer in the early 1700s and adapted for the stage by Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi in 1762.
At the start of the tale, we learn Turandot has avoided marriage by making her princely suitors answer three riddles first. Even a single wrong answer leads to death by execution.
The mysterious Prince Calaf, a fresh arrival in Turandot’s realm, sees her face from a distance and falls madly in love. He answers the riddles, so Turandot has to figure out how to deal with the consequences.
Gozzi’s original stage version was a farcical, commedia dell’arte take. But Puccini’s imagination was tickled by reading a much more serious, Romantic reinterpretation of the story by German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller.
In Gozzi and Schiller’s versions, Princess Turandot has vowed to stay single so that only she can make the rules. “Why should I not be free as men are?” she asks Calaf in Gozzi’s stage work.
In Schiller’s Romanticized dialogue, the princess says, “I hate proud man, and like to make him feel he may not crush free woman ’neath his heel.”
Those are #MeToo fighting words, written 218 years ago.
Puccini, working with his librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, made significant changes to the story. In their version, Turandot holds out until Calaf forces himself on her with a big kiss. Then she suddenly relents. So much for female empowerment.
Franco Alfano used Puccini’s notes when he completed the opera in 1926. But Arturo Toscanini, who conducted the premiere at La Scala in Milan that year, stopped the opening night’s performance short of the ending. He turned to the audience to say that this was the point at which Puccini died, and left the podium (the next night’s audience heard the full opera, although it may not have been Toscanini conducting).
“I didn’t like ‘Turandot’ when I took it on,” Wilson admits. He says most of the productions he has seen have been too visually busy. “I found myself closing my eyes so I could enjoy the music,” he says. “So I decided to clear the space for the music.”
Wilson’s imagination shows us how a director can adjust an old, classic opera to new sensibilities without changing the dialogue or the music. And once the beautiful music has stopped, it will give us something to think about on the way home. “Turandot” runs at the Four Seasons Centre for the performing arts from Saturday to Oct. 27. Carlo Rizzi conducts. The principal roles are double cast, so the singers can be different, depending on the performance. For all the details, visit coc.ca. Classical music writer John Terauds is a freelance contributor for the Star, based in Toronto. He is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @JohnTerauds