By Natalia Di Bartolo – Dan Ettinger on the podium at the Teatro San Carlo, a remarkable musical production, a direction to forget.
There are occasions in which the spectator present in the theater, even in his essential role as a critic, doubts whether or not to write a review of a show.
Yet it was an attractive show, the inauguration of the new Opera Season of the San Carlo theater in Naples, on December 9, 2023.
On the podium Concertmaster and conductor Dan Ettinger, which gave Puccini's score an agogic reading of vibrant modernity and conciseness, even if every now and then the dynamics flattened out and the tempos slowed down.
Sondra Radvanovsky always the great Turandot, she has deployed the volume and scope of her "razor blade" projection skills, which leaves no escape from difficulties. Equipped with a very generous instrument, she was sometimes a little’ imprecise in diction, openly Anglo-Saxon. But one can only say good things about it.
Yusif Eyvazov held the role of Calaf with the abilities and vocal generosity that we know of him, beyond any judgment on the sound quality of his powerful vocality, which manages to overcome difficult obstacles and reach very important peaks.
Rosa Feola, Liù, she was precise and attentive, but her vocals did not seem particularly suited to the role, which is preferable to be "darker" and in any case "sweeter".
Not particularly pregnant Timur by Alexander Tsymbalyuk; Ben amalgamated Ping Pang and Pong by Roberto de Candia, Gregory Bonfatti and Francesco Pittari; excellent San Carlo Choir, directed by Stefania Rinaldi for treble voices and from Peter Monti for theater workers.
A special note all’Emperor Altoum by Nicola Martinucci, which reawakened in passionate memories of ancient glories now gone by a Calaf who made history.
Unfinished masterpiece, overall, Turandot, Puccini himself willy-nilly, but of a divine perfection, until Liu's death. There where, in the opinion of the writer, orchestra conductors, always and in any case, should stop. There is no ending that matters, neither already written nor to dare to want to write again today.
So? Why be in doubt whether or not to review a production of such musical importance? Because it is not right to highlight in any way characters like the director Vasily Barkhatov and his staff (scenes by Zinovy Margolin, costumes by Galya Solodovnikova, lights by Alexander Sivaev, choreography by Dina Khuseyn) with his aberrant ideation and distortion of the plot and of the location of the Puccini Opera, whose first act, for this writer, has always been the maximum expression of the genius of the Lucca composer: his masterpiece.
All this is Art and Art should not be contaminated by pseudo-intellectual and visually unpleasant directorial gimmicks; the plot should not be changed, as was done by the director; nothing should be touched that is so perfect that it does not require any modification, including the ending which does not exist.
Not all "innovative" directions are to be condemned, not everything that would like to "rejuvenate" the Work is to be rejected, on the contrary; but never pass the limit of good taste, as happened in Naples, placing Nicola Martinucci, Emperor Altoumin a glass case, as if it were the mummified relic of a saint in some Neapolitan or French church. And this is just one example. We specifically do not intend to write about everything else, nor even carry out flights of fancy to dissect bizarre readings that bring the "inspiration" of the so-called "director" closer to this or that. Therefore, remaining faithful to the first input which was not to write, These notes are intended to be a simple awareness of how low the name "innovation" can go.
Not only that: doubling it, even triple the plot, inserting the presence of operating rooms and protagonists between life and death, can arouse in the spectator states of mind detached from what he went to see at the theater and awaken, in the consciences of those who have experienced it, that feeling of being "neither here nor there", which is one of the most shocking experiences from which one can go back. What does all this have to do with Turandot? Why is the viewer forced to feel like he is sitting in front of a clumsy shrink who allows himself to reawaken even such painfully dormant and traumatic experiences?
No one has the right, in the theatre, to disturb the audience, in any way. Let it be clear to those who, to feel at the forefront, entrust masterpieces to certain people sinister characters that destroy them and that they must absolutely be silenced and immediately forgotten.
Talking about it and talking about it does nothing but refuel their hypertrophic ego and nothingness which reigns in their lack of culture, in their taste and in their conscience, shining a spotlight on trash more absolute. Now we get to read “Barkhatov's Turandot!? AND’ the game of "Whether we talk about it well or badly about it, as long as we talk about it! NO! Absolutely and definitively it must be stopped; and the voices that cry in the desert, over time, always send back their echo, they never cry in vain.
And’ the first time such sense of rebellion prevails so vehemently and unstoppably over the present pen. Therefore, it is the first time that the writer is silent, expressing only his own deep, heartfelt and widely shared dissent on Neapolitan directorial production.
Natalia Dantas ©
Photo Luciano Romano | San Carlo Theater ©