Word: turandote
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...performances is that they surpassed even the expectations raised by an already glowing European reputation. For her first Met season, Leontyne Price contracted to sing five roles: Leonora in ll Trovatore, Aïda, Cio-Cio-San in Butterfly, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Liu in Turandot. Her Leonora proved to be a remarkable portrayal of a woman in whom dignity struggled with desperation and in whom grief somehow shone more movingly through a profound sense of repose. The amalgam of qualities made her fourth act aria D'amor sull'ali rosee a dramatic as well...
...theater, drawing all the score's turbulence from the orchestra without trying to make it the star of the show at the singers' expense. Cecil Beaton contributed dazzling if hardly daring sets, notably a kind of winged pagoda against a distant, unreal blue sky, which suggested that Turandot is not set in a real China but in an exotic region of the mind...
Impeccable of Tone. Newcomer Franco Corelli, as Calaf, the prince who stakes his life on winning the cold Turandot, is as handsome as any tenor who ever walked the Met stage, has a big, bronze voice that he can fling forth most of the time without strain; but often he lacks taste and sacrifices lyricism to masculinity, style to strut. Anna Moffo, as Liù, makes the part far more than the usual sweet rag doll: singing with impeccable beauty of tone but also with surprising force, she gives the character backbone, thus rendering plausible the scene in which...
Beyond a doubt, it is Soprano Nilsson who dominates the production. The famed second act aria, In questa reggia, and the whole scene that follows - in which Turandot poses the riddles which Calaf must solve to save his life and win her hand -is one of the most difficult half-hours in all opera. Callas, who sang a fine Turandot, rarely managed it without alarming wobbles; Nilsson's voice was unshakable...
...high range (almost consistently within the octave below high C), virtually challenges the singer to shrillness. Nilsson was never shrill. As one of the opera's riddles might put it, her crystal voice was hard without harshness and it cut without hurting, thus embodying the ultimate paradox of Turandot...