Puccini’s “Turandot,” a verismo opera set in a fabled version of ancient China, makes for an odd love story. Its unlikable romantic leads go largely unfazed by the death and dismemberment they instigate; when they finally share true love’s kiss, they’re standing atop a figurative pile of corpses.
On Wednesday at the Metropolitan Opera, the conductor Oksana Lyniv made a strong debut, emphasizing the murderous, life-or-death stakes instead of the fairy-tale Orientalism that has made it a cultural lightning rod in recent years.
“Turandot” has been on the receiving end of calls for revision and more for the stereotypes it perpetuates about Chinese people — such as its “dragon lady” title princess — recalling an imperialistic era of European chauvinism.
The reckoning around “Turandot” creates a problem for the Met, because the company’s long-running production, a lavish spectacle introduced by the director Franco Zeffirelli in 1987, is a hit. The gold-and-ecru throne room of Act II still dazzles, and eye-popping exoticism runs rampant, with acrobats, ribbon dancers, curled-roof pavilions and a dragon puppet.
But that stage dressing was not present in Lyniv’s exciting conducting. The brass stabs that open Act I had an almost expressionistic quality — severe, vital, grim — and the ones that closed it were cold, powerful and withholding. Taut strings and slinky woodwinds moved with dramatic, serpentine efficiency. Lyniv seized opportunities to foreground astringent harmonies.
Turandot’s motif, which Puccini based on a Chinese folk song, was splendid without being decorative in Act I, and warmly earthy in Act III after the princess had been humbled. Lyniv’s sense of rubato created just enough elasticity for the singers to phrase naturally, as in the ministers’ dreamily nostalgic “Ho una casa nell’Honan.”
The soprano Elena Pankratova, also making a debut, was an uncommonly sensitive Turandot who turned the cliché of the icy princess on its head. In her opening aria, “In questa reggia,” she revealed herself to be a deeply human storyteller, backing off the ends of phrases in a way that drew listeners into her story of generational trauma. She did such lovely work in the role’s lower-lying parts that one could forgive her lack of impact in the high notes in the riddle scene.
The tenor SeokJong Baek didn’t have much to do during his company debut earlier in the season in the limited role of Ismaele in Verdi’s “Nabucco.” Not so in “Turandot,” in which his Calàf galvanized the performance. His shining, beautifully deployed voice represented a determined, vainglorious Calàf governed by his own egoism. High notes didn’t so much bloom as rise like a column from a handsome middle, and pastel-colored singing added depth without turning him into a generic romantic hero. Baek’s physicality, elegant in its restraint, likewise conveyed Calàf’s certitude.
The soprano Aleksandra Kurzak shaped Liù’s music with lively confidence and forward motion. Even in her sacrifice for Calàf, this Liù remained kind and sensible rather than pitiful and meek, an oasis of sanity in a world gone mad with dangerous desires. The bass Vitalij Kowaljow made an argument for casting Timur, Calàf’s father, with a singer who still possesses reserves of richness and power. His mournful howls after Liù’s death had dignity, and a kingly dimension.
As Lyniv brought the opera to a stirring conclusion, the audience could not contain its enthusiasm, covering the final bars of the score with raucous applause as gold confetti fluttered onto the stage from the rafters. The ovation was clearly for the resplendent stage picture, but if the applause for Lyniv’s solo bow was any indication, it was also for the conductor who completed it.
Turandot
In repertory, with different casts, through June 7 at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org.
