Puccini: Turandot.(Video Recording Review)

Schnaut, Gallardo-Domas; Botha, Burchuladze, Tear, Daniel, Ombuena, Davislim, Bork; Vienna State Opera Chores, Tolz Boys Choir, Vienna Philharmonic, Gergiev. TDK DVD-OPTURSF (Naxos, dist.), subtitled, 125 mins. (including interview feature)

Forget Franco Zeffirelli. This, most emphatically, is not the sort of kitsch spectacular to which Metropolitan Opera audiences have become conditioned. For better or worse, this is a modern Turandot, a thinking person's Turandot, a tough, spare and nasty Turandot. The plot does not--repeat not--unfold in the most lavish of Chinese restaurants.

Forget Franco Alfano. This production, staged at Salzburg in 2002, incorporates the final scenes, the ones Puccini left incomplete, as reconstructed a year earlier by Luciano Berio. Alfano tried, honorably, to channel the master's spirit and ultimately build to a rambling, bombastic climax. Berio, bless him, dared embrace economy as he retraced the lines in relatively modern tones. He even ended the saga in a mood of poignant introspection. It works.

Forget Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli. They don't make superhuman singers like these any more. The stellar principals at the Austrian festival look a lot bigger than they sound.

David Pountney directs the piece, not just the traffic, boldly. His Turandot is a symbolist morality play. Until Lift introduces the grace of self-sacrificing love, Peking is a city of robotic puppets and nightmare rituals. Johan Engels's sets, ...