A huge Oriental frame encompasses the fairy tale world of the princess Turandot, but beware all who enter. As it said in ancient charts: "Here be monsters."
In director Cecilia Ligorio’s production, it is a land of brutalised people. There is no executioner but a legion of demons, and those officers of state, Ping, Pang and Pong, whose first action is to kick away the walking stick of the blind beggar king Timur, are willing participants in the fearful regime.
Nor is there a great grindstone, nor an axeman in Alessia Colosso’s set, atmospherically lit by Fabio Barettin, but a large metallic moon in the shape of death’s scythe hangs ominously in the sky.
Rather than ostentatious chinoiserie, the show effectively relies on symbolism, beautifully illustrated when the ice princess first appears on high, mutely brushing snow onto the populace below.
Turandot’s first utterance, "In questa reggia," does not come until nearly an hour later, half-way through the show. There is a short pause before Spanish soprano Saioa Hernandez sings, then something extraordinary happens: the effect she produces is electrifying.
The vocal performances to that point are competent but unremarkable. To liken Hernandez to a Ferrari among Fiats would be a little unkind to others, but the engine of her voice does have that deep, throbbing quality and immediately raises the performance to a thrilling new level.
She is blessed with a great vocal instrument that rises easily above the orchestra and combines this with a keen sense of interpretation that conveys the character’s transformation as convincingly as I can recall.
She looks good too, initially in a gown by designer Simone Valsecchi of jet black silk and icy white lace (no more than her due, having last seen her in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino streamed from Florence in a get-up resembling randomly assembled body parts).
A vigorous Roberto Aronica bags plenty of vocal muscle as Calaf, and Selene Zanetti brings an almost Wagnerian heft to the role of Liu, while still displaying sufficient pitiful intensity to drive away some of those demons.
To resolve the ambiguity inherent in the behaviour of the P*ngs (Simone Alberghini, Valentino Buzza and Paolo Antognetti), Ligorio has them step forward, beyond the frame of fantasy, for their tranquil lament for a quiet life, and it is here too that Calaf and his defrosted fiancée are finally united in a new existence.
The chorus, the largest for which Puccini ever wrote, sing to great effect, particularly the high sopranos. Conductor Francesco Ivan Ciampa maintains a tight balance throughout, while encouraging his battery of percussion to produce explosions of sound that reverberated through La Fenice like cannon shots.
It was a nice touch to halt proceedings briefly after Liu’s death, the point at which Puccini died, before continuing with the work’s completion by Franco Alfano. Thus was respect shown to both composers, and the effectiveness of the latter’s work amply demonstrated.