Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Puccini TURANDOT (2009) Met. Opera on Blu-Ray

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-10-2011, 07:35 PM:

I Have started to collect operas on Blue-Ray and already have Verdi's AIDA and LA TRAVIATA, Gounod's ROMEO & JULIET & Rossini' LA CENERENTOLA. My new acquisition is TURANDOT by Puccini and I just watched it over the weekend and it was excellent. The performance was by the Metropolitan Opera in New York and exactily as it was broadcast live to selected theatres everywhere including the Dole Cannery here in Honolulu. As much as would love to see these theatrical presentations, I find the admission a a bit more than I am willing to pay . For just twelve dollars more, I was able to purchase the Blu-Ray and can now watch it as often as I would like.

TURANDO is among my favorite operas and I already have another earlier Met performance on laserdisc but because I no longer play my LDs anymore, I jumped at the opportunity to get the new Blu-Ray that was only released a few weeks ago.

The cast is splendid! It features Maria Gulegeghina as the cold Turandot, Marcello Giordani as Calaf , Marina Poplasvskaya as Liu, Samuel Ramey as Timur and other fantastic performers with Andris Nelsons conductIng the Met Orchestra and chorus. The wonderful thing about this performance and the other one on LD is the production and set design was by Franco Zefferelli and awesome to look at. This opera is already 'Grand' but is much grander because of Zefferelli.

THe picture and sound is fantastic and comes with a DTS HD Master Audio and PCM 24 bit Stereo track.

-Claude

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-11-2011, 12:05 AM:

quote:
TURANDOT is among my favorite operas

Course, with the aria for tenor in Act III, "Nessun Dorma" .. of Puccini's last opera.. in making Paul Potts a hero on "Britain's Got Talent" show .. which is also Simon Cowell's show ... in 2007.

-Monte

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-11-2011, 02:47 PM:

Not only was TURANDO Puccini's last opera, he died before finishing it in 1924. Franco Alfano was selected to complete the work just at the point after Liu kills herself, in Act 111 and did a marvelous job with Puccini's original drafts and layouts of the ending. Arturo Toscanini who had conducted the premiere at La Scala in Milan, Italy in 1927 and was one of the people who had selected Alfano to complete the work, felt the ending Alfano had written was too long and Toscanini had to do a massive amount of editing. The amount of material Toscanini had selected for the final score was fifteen minutes of music with a dazziling finale. I get goose pimples every time I hear the finale. Especially the way it was performed on my new BD by the Metropolitan Opera. Unfortunately, first night audience at the premiere did not see and hear Alfano's edited ending because Toscanini stopped condcting at the point where Puccini stopped writing and announced " it is at this point the maestro put down his pen and died" The performance ended that evening with that announcement but TURANDOT was performed the following evening by Toscanini with Alfano's ending and that is the way it has always been performed. There have been recent performance of TURANDO with Alfano's longer ending but that has been rare because most conductors prefers Toscanini's version.

-Claude