[Met Performance] CID:200930
Turandot {59} Metropolitan Opera House: 01/13/1965.
(Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
January 13, 1965
TURANDOT {59}
Puccini/Alfano-Adami/Simoni
Turandot................Birgit Nilsson
Calāf...................Jess Thomas
Lių.....................Lucine Amara
Timur...................Bonaldo Giaiotti
Ping....................Frank Guarrera
Pang....................Robert Nagy
Pong....................Charles Anthony
Emperor Altoum..........Mariano Caruso
Mandarin................Robert Goodloe
Prince of Persia........Christopher Lyall
Servant.................Lawrence Eddington
Servant.................Craig Crosson
Servant.................Harry Jones
Executioner.............Howard Sayette
Executioner.............Richard Zelens
Executioner.............William Burdick
Conductor...............Fausto Cleva
Director................Yoshio Aoyama
Director................Nathaniel Merrill
Designer................Cecil Beaton
Choreographer...........Mattlyn Gavers
Turandot received fourteen performances this season.
Review of Irving Kolodin in the January 30, 1965 issue of the Saturday Review
Nilsson
Puccini's "Turandot" made a welcome return to the Metropolitan's repertory in mid-January, not only for the visual distinctions of Cecil Beaton's colorful decor, but because it brought a promise of Wagner and Strauss to come. That is to say, the return of Birgit Nilsson, whose vocal quality was prime, her command of Puccini's relentlessly demanding writing as effortless and compelling as ever. Rather than being the homogeneous part of a satisfying whole she was when the production was first directed by Leopold Stokowski in 1960, Miss Nilsson - through no fault of her own - was the radiant light of an otherwise clouded panorama. Jess Thomas's first Calaf was creditable to the American tenor's artistic purposes, but without the ringing vibrance or the stylistic sense to suit the circumstance. He looked well, walked well, tried hard; this is not a Puccini voice. Fausto Cleva's conducting was possibly more of a comfort for the singers than Stokowski's had been, but the electric charge his predecessor generated was conspicuously absent.