★★★★★
Having dispatched Wagner’s Ring in a highly imaginative semi-staged concert presentation, Opera North is applying the same format to something even more brutal, if considerably shorter. Confession time: I wouldn’t mind if I never saw Turandot again. I find the vicarious cruelty repellent, the main characters loathsome and the ending (which Puccini left unfinished at his death) desperately weak in Alfano’s completion.
If you have to do Turandot, however, do it like this. Book a massive, and massively resonant, town hall. Hire an army of extras to swell your orchestra and chorus, and soloists who could stop a cavalry charge by decibels alone. And hurl out the piece as though you have taken the show’s hit tune — Nessun dorma, none shall