[Met Performance] CID:200930



Turandot
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, January 13, 1965




Turandot (59)
Giacomo Puccini | Giuseppe Adami/Renato Simoni
Turandot
Birgit Nilsson

Cal?f
Jess Thomas

Li?
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


Production
Yoshio Aoyama

Director
Nathaniel Merrill

Designer
Cecil Beaton

Choreographer
Mattlyn Gavers





Turandot received fourteen performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Irving Kolodin in the January 30, 1965 issue of the Saturday

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.



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