A complete recording under studio conditions: This "Turandot" is somehow out of date.
Antonio Pappano relies on Jonas Kaufmann as Calaf, a long finale and little surprises.
The bloody fairy tale has already lasted a good 50 minutes, and then it comes to the point.
The aged Chinese Emperor Altoum meets Calaf, who covets the monarch's daughter.
The first part, a mini-exercise, is sung here by Michael Spyres, currently the most exciting, most diverse tenor, dancing between Rossini and Wagner with great skill, a cameo appearance.
Jonas Kaufmann is active in the other role, the advertising medium of this new recording.
Two worlds of style and vocals collide, as if Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was cast with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the title hero and brought in Joachim Meyerhoff for Polonius.
Anyone who hires Spyres for the Altoum must therefore have money.
In general, this recording of Giacomo Puccini's "Turandot" is something that actually no longer exists.
Getting opera stars in front of studio microphones for several days, plus a subsequent concert performance as the icing on the cake, can hardly be financed anymore.
Unlike half a century ago, when the record industry was doing well and putting out an opera recording almost every month.
In this respect, this box that has just been released has fallen out of time.
And therefore more important than ever.
Antonio Pappano, outgoing chief conductor of the Roman Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, has done something like this more often in recent years, mostly with a merchant as the driving force.
In the case of “Turandot”, which Puccini, who was suffering from cancer, was known to be unable to complete, Pappano came up with something special.
You can hear the finale, completed by Franco Alfano, which is otherwise – if at all – heard in a short version.
You can hear Franco Alfano's complete post-composed ending
Like an ice-cold princess inflamed within a few minutes for a suitor who she just wanted to behead, Puccini could no longer crack this dramaturgical nut.
Toscanini let the opus end in 1926 at the premiere with the suicide of Liù, who was madly in love with Calaf, an open ending that opera houses are again practicing more frequently today.
Or they have contemporaries like Luciano Berio write a solution for them.
The classic Alfano short variant, on the other hand, seems stuck on, the "Nessun dorma", dolled up to the choral version, serves here as a cheap applause tickler.
With Pappano one listens to the long variant, although one is dramaturgically satisfied with everything about this Pizza Puccini, especially since quiet, previously unheard intimate moments happen between Turandot and Calaf.
But when everything starts to rise to a triumphant love affair, you start fiddling with the dynamic controller immediately – after all, you don't want to attract the attention of your neighbors.
Otherwise Pappano, he is the event of this recording, does not use the "Turandot" clichés.
Puccini's most opulent opera doesn't pound you down with effects.
Instead, there is something that has been listened to, a round, colourful, substantial sound in which not the rhythm instruments but the strings play a decisive role.
The orchestra conveys this with elegance and warmth, the choir only foams at the mouth where it is really necessary.
Sondra Radvanovsky does not play the steel worker in the title role either.
The former bel canto expert has enough power for extreme situations.
But even with such border crossings, her soprano remains rounded and the text understandable - you quickly get used to the rather peculiar timbre.
Ermonela Jaho as Liù irritates with a slight shimmering, but there are magic flute tones in the higher registers.
Mattia Olivieri, Gregory Bonfatti and Siyabonga Maqungo see the three ministers as what they should be: no buffo figures, but an evil, cynical trio.
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Divo at the recording session: Jonas Kaufmann sings his first Calaf.
© Musacchio Ianniello & Pasqualini
And Jonas Kaufman?
As always, he is the laborer in the mine of the dark tenor sound.
His tenor muscle games suit Calaf.
For lyricism he can still have his voice leveled down and caressed.
The fact that some things are at their limit could be intentional and recorded under drama.
An interpretation from the good old operatic days, you don't just hear the overly long (and contrary to the score) fermata in "Nessun dorma" on "Vincero!" A mortal sin, however, that Pappano (at least in the stream version) gave the Divo the concert conclusion of the aria begrudge - Puccini deliberately allowed the number to merge into the following ensemble.
The rattling of the rotating composer's corpse should not only startle Torre del Lago.
Giacomo Puccini:
"Turandot".
Orchestra e Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Antonio Pappano (Warner Classics).