Tom's Life Bits

This was Sarasota Opera's best to date. We absolutely loved the wonderful singing, strong chorus and excellent Orchestra. It received very good reviews in the paper.

By Gayle Williams, Herald-Tribune

Garish and over the top productions are not what the Sarasota Opera is known for given artistic director Victor deRenzi’s mission of authenticity. But if you’re expecting opulence in this season’s production of Puccini’s “Turnadot” on the order of Franco Zefferelli, then you will have to go home disappointed.

However, those content to let the lush score, a magnificent orchestra and the strongest cast of singers yet heard on this stage to stand on their own with Puccini’s tale of the ice princess Turandot and her conquering suitor Calaf will be elated.

Brenda Harris as the princess Turandot and Jonathan Burton as the young man who wants to win her hand in the Sarasota Opera production of “Turandot.” ROD MILLINGTON PHOTO/PROVIDED BY SARASOTA OPERA

In even the most modest circumstances, this is a big production and Sarasota Opera has waited until it had all the forces in place to ensure a more than satisfying performance. The pit accommodated a larger orchestra than has been heard before and with an extensive set of gongs, bells, harp and celeste to color the chinoiserie of the score. With such a small stage, scenic designer Michael Sweikardt wisely chose not to overwhelm us, but rather walked a line of minimalism allowing lighting and strategic touches of color and design work their magic.

Set in the palace environs of legendary Peking, China, the story introduces us first to the blind exiled King of Tartary, Timur, and his faithful servant, Liu. Last seen on this stage as the Rigoletto villain Sparafucile, Young Bok Kim was a rock solid, if physically infirm, Timur. The waifish Maria Natale fooled us with a strong and lovely lyric soprano voice for Liu’s floating high B-flat as she recounts Calaf’s smile and her love for him. She later flexed her dramatic muscle, giving Turandot a run for her money musically with two back to back arias in the third Act. Natale’s gossamer lines of “Tanto amore segreto” and “Tu che di gel sei cinta” offer an example of self-surrendering love in contrast to Turandot’s frigidity.

A tenor who can add substantial flesh to Calaf as well as deliver the most famous aria of Italian grand opera to satisfaction is a rare find, especially in regional opera. In his debut with the Sarasota Opera, Jonathan Burton hit the jackpot with his delivery of “Nessun dorma” that could stand confidently next to our worn recordings of Corelli, Domingo and Pavarotti.

This brings us to the ice queen herself, Turandot, a brutally demanding role where the first vocal appearance is the second most famous aria, “In questa reggia.” Best served with a chill, this aria calls for a forceful dramatic soprano which was exactly what Brenda Harris provided. With the story of her ancestress taken and abused by the conquering Tartar king, she explained why no man shall ever have her. Harris never faltered as she ramped up the volume and the pitch with only a bit more edge than was comfortable. She was laying down the gauntlet and by the end Calaf joined her as if to call her bluff with a long unison high C. Chills were running down spines throughout the hall.

A trio of court officials named Ping, Pang, Pong provided a more human, and comic, perspective to the gruesome backdrop of executions resulting from Turandot’s death sentence for suitors unable to solve her three riddles. Matthew Hanscom, Marvin Kehler and Eric Bowden, the respective three P’s, managed some tricky interplay and lively choreography in these commedia dell’arte characters. Their scene in Act II was entertaining in all ways with a striking screen of bright green, orange, red fan print creating their palace courtyard.

Stephanie Sundine’s stage direction throughout resisted the exploitation of elements seen in other productions. Liu’s torture to extract Calaf’s name is minimized and left to the imagination while the executioner is only a silent, yet fully muscled and bare-chested presence.

The large chorus of adults and youth on stage was a thrill adding considerable dramatic heft. Moving them about, as well as the processions of courtiers, took great attention to detail and only narrowly missed feeling perfunctory.

As with the set, costumes were comparatively understated. Turandot, of course, stood out with her shining silvery headdress and gown. Lighting director Ken Yunker always on target, subtly created the opera’s critical moonrise and sunrise.

Finally, I must point out that this opera would have nothing to stand on if it were not for the exceptionally lush score and a full orchestra able to capitalize on every beautiful moment. Director DeRenzi and his instrumental colleagues were stars on par with Turandot and Calaf. Bravissimo!

Date: February 13, 2013 by: June LeBell | Contributing Columnist

Brenda Harris in Sarasota Opera's “Turandot.”

The stars were out this weekend when the Sarasota Opera opened its 2013 season with Puccini’s passionate “Turandot.” The largest and most grand of operas Sarasota Opera has presented, this lyric drama of ancient China calls for the most singers on stage and instrumentalists in the pit. Before the curtain went up, with visions of Zeffirelli chock-a-block in our brains, we feared director Stephanie Sundine would go for enormous and fill the stage with teeming throngs so busy the music would be overwhelmed, or she’d go for a chamber mini version that would look trivial.

Sundine did neither. Rather, she — with the help of scenic designer Michael Schweikardt and lighting designer Ken Yunker — turned the comparatively diminutive area into a microcosm of ancient Peking, using the chorus, which, in this opera is one of the most important characters, to comment on and advance the drama.

And drama there was. Princess Turandot, played with just the right mix of icy trepidation and melting passion by Brenda Harris, is an almost super-human figure. She thinks she is beyond human, a goddess, too aloof and superior to be touched by the evil promulgated, she’s sure, by men. Untouchable, impeccable and, most importantly, unattainable, this ice princess is terrified of men because they silenced the beautiful voice and life of an adored ancestor and she will not allow that to happen to her.

Harris, with a voice bigger than all Peking itself, manages to combine the steely resoluteness of the princess with the terrified woman beneath and, through a trio of incomprehensible Chinese riddles, entices men from afar to guess the answers and marry her or fail at the riddles and lose their heads.

Threes abound in “Turandot.” Along with the three riddles, there are three courtiers — Ping (Matthew Hanscom); Pang (Marvin Kehler); and Pong (Eric Bowden), harlequin-type characters, clowns and pawns of the court, who, in Sundine’s brilliant staging and their believable acting and singing, become mere men, pining for their hometowns and fearing for the future of their beloved China.

Thanks to the Unknown Prince, Jonathan Burton, this opera has a happy ending, because he’s not only kind and compassionate, he’s also smart, and he, of all Turandot’s suitors, unravels her riddles and wins her hand. Burton has some unraveling to do with the audiences, as well. While he must match the steely but beautiful Turandot in both voice and eminence, he must also convince an audience, whose ears have been filled with the sound of Pavarotti, and sing the role and the well-known aria, “Nessun dorma,” like a god. Burton did it all and came away with a roar of well-earned approval.

Puccini, a great man of the theater, has inserted other characters into “Turandot,” who make this tale even more believable. Sarasota Opera stalwart basso Young Bok Kim, with makeup and hair designed by Gabrielle Vincent and Anne Ford-Coates of Elsen Associates, looks more ancient than the Great Wall, itself, but sounds rich and poignant as Timur, a deposed Tartar king and father of the Unknown Prince.

Maria Natale is the honorable, beautiful young slave girl Liu who has aided Timur on his travels until he’s reunited with his son. Sometime in the past, the Prince smiled at Liu and she fell madly in love. In her first aria, “Signore, ascolta,” Natale’s warm lyric soprano simply melted the final words, “ah … pieta … ” and the audience instantly fell in love with her.

This is an opera about love. The Prince doesn’t want Turandot as a prize; he wants her to love him. So, even after he’s solved the riddles and won her, he decides to put a riddle to her and, if she solves it by dawn, he will still lose his life. But, if she cannot find the answer, she will be his. His question seems simple: She must tell him his name. Only Liu knows and, realizing she may break under torture, she kills herself — for love. And that melts the icy façade Turandot has carried all those years.

The Sarasota Opera production melts our hearts, as well. Yunker’s way with lighting and color (look for the magnificent green night sky with twinkling stars that blooms into a renewed dawn in the third act!) and Howard Tsvi Kaplan’s understated peasant costumes compared with the splendor of Turandot’s robes, make this a miniature giant-of-a-production.

Then, there’s the all-important orchestra in the pit, which, under the direction of Victor DeRenzi, played at its very best. DeRenzi has gotten inside this score and melded orchestral sound with vocal opulence to the best possible effect. We wish they and the first-rate chorus would have had a curtain call to call their own.

This is a “Turandot” that could teach past productions and performers a thing or two about theater, proving big isn’t necessarily better. They nailed it. Zeffirelli, eat your heart out!