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?Turandot? ? For the return of Puccini?s final, glitziest opera in Zeffirelli's presumably not final but glitziest production, good things happened. At the performance I attended (January 28), Gwyneth Jones focused her enormous, occasionally unruly soprano into a disciplined but white-hot performance of the Chinese princess whose taste for suitors? blood is quenched by sudden lust for a loud-voiced tenor. And Teresa Stratas, singing the faithful, self-sacrificing Liu, added many emotional colors and much vocal finesse to what was, a quarter-century ago, a quite good interpretation. The other night, although beset by incipient laryngitis, Stratas phrased her arias like a master, and her sound actually gained richness as the opera progressed. One typical Stratas touch was her reacting to her beloved Calaf?s answering Turandot's riddles not with the usual simpers at losing the guy to another woman but with joy over his not losing the fatal game and not getting beheaded. Vladimir Popov was crudely loud but bearable as Cala`f, and Nicola Ghiuselev sang a splendid Timur. Nello Santi conducted for spectacular but unsubtle color, and the ?commedia? masks were sung with nuance and good balance by Dwayne Croft, Michael Forest, and Anthony Laciura.

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