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The first opera of this year's season was Turandot. Our tickets were originally for October 2, but F and I had plans to visit family in Pittsburgh that weekend, so we needed to move them to the previous weekend. Mom gave me the tickets; I put them in my neighbor Sid's mailbox, and a few days later new tickets showed up in my mailbox. The service provided by Opera Philadelphia, I'll tell ya!
When we arrived, we were happy to see a friend of my mom's. Teresa and Mom always talked about the opera, but Teresa's season tickets were usually for Friday nights; she'd recently gotten tired of all the driving late at night, so she'd moved them to Sundays. Teresa was there with her husband and daughter so we had a nice chat. And then, when we got upstairs to our seats, we discovered we were sitting right next to them! What a funny coincidence. Also they shared snacks with us.
The opera itself was not my favorite. As you sometimes find with these old operas, the singing can be great, the orchestra and the sets and costumes can be great, but the opera itself won't be great because it's just not that good an opera. In this instance, Turandot just isn't designed to be a likeable character by a long shot, and the prince who falls in love with her on sight isn't sympathetic because he's an idiot. His actions cause a longtime faithful servant to be killed, but he gets what he wants in the end so it's all good, right? Argh. And I had been looking forward to this one, too, I usually love Puccini despite his troubled approach to his female characters. Oh well, couldn't get past it this time. Vocally, Joyce El-Khoury was the standout as faithful Liu who gets killed.
When I got home, f wanted to hear the story of the opera, so I ended up telling it like five times. I had to really work to make Turandot into a heroine when the prince melts her cold heart. I had to throw in a wizard who made her that way, and I had to leave out all the beheadings. I left in the torture of the faithful servant, but I had the prince step in to save her. Basically I rewrote the whole story to not suck so much.
The one interesting thing is that a local Asian society had a flyer in the program (I can't find my program now) talking about the history of the opera, the troubling portrayal of Asian people and culture, the racist depictions of characters Ping and Pang, not to mention the troubling female roles - they had a lot to talk about. I was really happy to see that Opera Philadelphia is engaging in that dialogue, though, and inviting such organizations to the table in making decisions about how they're going to stage an opera like this.
Overall, though, sorry Puccini, not a fan.
When we arrived, we were happy to see a friend of my mom's. Teresa and Mom always talked about the opera, but Teresa's season tickets were usually for Friday nights; she'd recently gotten tired of all the driving late at night, so she'd moved them to Sundays. Teresa was there with her husband and daughter so we had a nice chat. And then, when we got upstairs to our seats, we discovered we were sitting right next to them! What a funny coincidence. Also they shared snacks with us.
The opera itself was not my favorite. As you sometimes find with these old operas, the singing can be great, the orchestra and the sets and costumes can be great, but the opera itself won't be great because it's just not that good an opera. In this instance, Turandot just isn't designed to be a likeable character by a long shot, and the prince who falls in love with her on sight isn't sympathetic because he's an idiot. His actions cause a longtime faithful servant to be killed, but he gets what he wants in the end so it's all good, right? Argh. And I had been looking forward to this one, too, I usually love Puccini despite his troubled approach to his female characters. Oh well, couldn't get past it this time. Vocally, Joyce El-Khoury was the standout as faithful Liu who gets killed.
When I got home, f wanted to hear the story of the opera, so I ended up telling it like five times. I had to really work to make Turandot into a heroine when the prince melts her cold heart. I had to throw in a wizard who made her that way, and I had to leave out all the beheadings. I left in the torture of the faithful servant, but I had the prince step in to save her. Basically I rewrote the whole story to not suck so much.
The one interesting thing is that a local Asian society had a flyer in the program (I can't find my program now) talking about the history of the opera, the troubling portrayal of Asian people and culture, the racist depictions of characters Ping and Pang, not to mention the troubling female roles - they had a lot to talk about. I was really happy to see that Opera Philadelphia is engaging in that dialogue, though, and inviting such organizations to the table in making decisions about how they're going to stage an opera like this.
Overall, though, sorry Puccini, not a fan.
