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Review: Lush singing decorates lavish San Diego Opera production of ‘Turandot’

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Over the past 20 years, San Diego Opera audiences have been treated to the spectacle of Giacomo Puccini’s epic fairy tale “Turandot” four times. But until this week, they’ve essentially seen the same staging over and over again.

In 1997, 2004 and 2011, San Diego Opera produced “Turandot” with the same director (Lotfi Mansouri), the same conductor (Edoardo Müller), the same costumes and the same scenery. But Mansouri died in 2013, Müller passed away in 2016 and San Diego Opera survived its own near-death experience in 2014.

Now “Turandot” is back in a production that opened Saturday at the San Diego Civic Theatre featuring new scenery and costumes and a new conductor and director who bring new layers to the love story set in ancient Peking.

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Making a welcome return as the icy-hearted princess Turandot is California-raised soprano Lise Lindstrom, who played the part here in 2011 and has sung it all over the world since 2003. Turandot is one of the most difficult roles in the dramatic soprano repertoire, but Lindstrom sings with clarity, nuance, theatrical fire and enough vocal power to easily fill the 3,000-seat Civic Theatre, which was sold out on opening night.

Another California-raised soprano, Angel Joy Blue, was equally impressive in her house and role debut as Liù, the slave who sacrifices herself for love. She has a lush, rich and large voice that brims with emotion in Liù’s two heartbreaking arias.

Virginia tenor Carl Tanner makes his house debut as Calaf, the mysterious prince who’s determined to marry Turandot. He has a substantial, meaty, rock-solid voice and he cleanly pulls of the show’s most-anticipated moment, the famous third-act aria “Nessun Dorma,” but his acting felt stiff on Saturday.

This “Turandot” staging has an onstage cast of 101, including principals, choruses, acrobats and lantern-carriers. A cast this size fit more easily on the Civic stage with the old scenery by contemporary painter David Hockney. Hockney’s red-and-blue forbidden city walls and stairs spread out across on the stage. The gorgeous new scenery by Allen Charles Klein is built vertically on a sharply raked set surrounded on all sides by an enormous Chinese dragon.

Presumably to keep cast members from tumbling into the orchestra pit — and there were a couple of gasp-inducing missteps by Lindstrom and an unfortunate chorus member on Saturday — stage director Keturah Stickann has clad the performers in rubber-soled shoes and instructed them to move at the speed of molasses. That makes for rather dull, stand-and-deliver storytelling in the big crowd scenes.

But fortunately, Stickann’s staging has some thoughtful touches that chip away at the story’s dated and sometimes silly plot.

In order to marry the stubborn Turandot, princes like Calaf must answer her three riddles. If they fail, they’re decapitated, like the dozen-plus former suitors whose severed heads decorate the stylized gates in the opening scene. That fate doesn’t deter Calaf, who answers all three questions but offers Turandot his own riddle in hopes of winning her heart as well as her hand.

The specter of violent death raises the stakes in this “Turandot” and Stickann’s staging creatively pantomimes the fate of the princes who came before Calaf and the tragic death awaiting Liù.

In this staging, Liù slits her own throat, but then she rises from the dead with a smile and leads Timur, who dies from a broken heart, into a sunny afterlife. This smartly removes their dead bodies from the stage so love can quickly bloom between Calaf and Turandot, which has always been one of the most hard-to-buy transitions in the story.

The comical courtier characters of Ping, Pang and Pong have been thankfully toned down in costume and performance style since 2011. They’re not quite the egregious Asian stereotype as usually seen and they’re well sung by baritone Marco Nisticò as Ping, Joseph Gaines as Pang and Joel Sorenson as Pong (who played Pang in the 2011 production).

Another returnee from 2011 is Scott Sikon, who once again plays the Mandarin. Brian Kontes makes his company debut as Calaf’s aged father Timur and Chad Frisque stars as Turandot’s father, Emperor Altoum.

Lucas Krech’s colorful lighting design adds to the magical quality of the production. The costumes by Willa Kim are a beautiful mix of fantasy and historical, with Turandot’s blue and white costume and stately headdress a clear standout.

As good as this “Turandot” looks, it’s the glorious music that brings audiences back. San Diego Opera chorus master Bruce Stasyna deserves praise for the beauty and unity of sound from the adult and children’s choirs. And conductor Valerio Galli ably leads the San Diego Symphony in a pristine, if subtle, rendering of the Chinese-influenced score.

“Turandot”

When: 7 p.m. Feb. 27 and March 2. 2 p.m. March 4.

Where: San Diego Opera at the San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 B St., downtown.

Tickets: $48 and up

Phone: (619) 533-7000

Online: sdopera.org

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com. Twitter: @pamkragen

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