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The Masked Singer Frankfurt
Oper Frankfurt
04/12/2026 - & April 16, 19, 25, May 1, 3, 9, 14, 17, 23, 29, June 4, 2026
Lucia Ronchetti: Io tacerò (World Premiere)
Giacomo Puccini: Turandot
Elza van den Heever*/Olesya Golovneva (Turandot), Alfred Kim (Calaf), Guanqun Yu (Liù), Liviu Holender (Ping), Magnus Dietrich (Pang), Michael Porter (Pong), Inho Jeong (Timur), Michael McCown (Altoum), Erik van Heyningen (A Mandarin), Jun Azuma, Tomoya Kawamura, Atsushi Takahashi (Turandot’s Bodyguards)
Oper Frankfurt’s Chorus & Extra Chorus, Manuel Pujol (Chorus Master), Children’s Chorus, Alvaro Corral Matute (Children’s Chorus Master), Frankfurt Opern- and Museumsorchester, Thomas Guggeis (conductor)
Andrea Breth (Director), Alexander Koppelmann (Lighting Designer), Johannes Leiacker (Set Designer), Ursula Renzenbrink (Costume Designer), Maximilian Enderle (Dramaturge)
E. van den Heever, A. Kim (© Bernd Uhlig)
A successful first night for Frankfurt’s new production of Turandot, which went down well with the audience. Director Andrea Breth made the decison to play the opera in one long arc with no interval and to end it with Liù’s death in Act III, as did Toscanini conducting the world premiere in 1926, marking the fact that Puccini had not composed his final opera to completion. Frankfurt’s performance got off to an unconventional start with a new choral introduction composed by Lucia Ronchetti, and it proved a fascinating and wonderful experiment. Orchestral and electronic music slid out from the pit and gradually choral whisperings and moanings could be heard from outside the auditorium, all notated and increasing in volume. The chorus then slid into the theatre and stood around the audience, almost invisible in the dark, and the music lurched in and out of tonality, the imprecations increasing in volume, with just the sight of conductor Thomas Guggeis’ starkly lit hands conducting high above his head so all the performers could follow his precise guidance. It was both chilling and spellbinding. Then the chorus melted away and Puccini’s opening chords sounded as the curtain rose on Johannes Leiacker’s starkly monochrome set, effectively lit by Alexander Koppelmann.
Breth staged the opera in a contemporary totalitarian world which has been created by Turandot and which is mired in laws and regulations, the populace crushed into submission; even her father the emperor (seemingly having had a stroke) has lost control and cannot prevent his daughter’s autonomy and consequent cruelty. Calaf, Liù and Timur are prisoners – in fact half the populace seems to be encaged – and Ping, Pang and Pong are faceless bureaucrats who run Peking’s administration, ensuring that everything adheres to prescribed state governance. It is bleak and completely soulless, with just one despot controlling every last detail. Turandot appears masked and inscrutable and, as it turns out, deadly – she has no compunction in torturing Liù herself and kills one of her own bodyguards (three men carrying bō, or staffs) for inadvertently providing the dagger that Liù uses for her suicide. There are witty touches – Ping, Pang and Pong each whisper their dreams of home to us from behind their arch lever files, scared but thrilled to be breaking the rules – and also some symbolism I didn’t understand: why do they each hold a stuffed hare in their opening scene? In Chinese culture, the hare represents positive prosperity and peace and I couldn’t place this within Breth’s bleak creative world.
Guggeis, having conducted Tristan und Isolde the preceding night, attacked Turandot with equally impressive gusto and gave us a thrilling ride. I have never heard so many orchestral details and it reinforced just how all‑embracing Puccini’s score is – at one moment I was thinking Berg; another, Gershwin, then glitzy Hollywood score. It was zesty and bracing. One example: as Calaf ponders the third riddle the cellos play a downwards glissando several times, and here Guggeis elicited a vicious scraping yawn worthy of a horror film, ratcheting the tension. As in Tristan, the orchestra was superb. And the chorus, a jewel of the company on any night, excelled itself. Guggeis is the real deal and I suspect headed for great things.
Elza van den Heever made her role debut as Turandot in the house where she forged her international reputation. She has a massive soprano which she wields adroitly, never becoming blowsy or loud for the sake of it. She has stage presence in spades – you really wouldn’t argue with her. She has obviously studied and planned the role with great attention to detail – every line of her opening ‘In questa reggia’ was a considered phrase, always descriptive. And her launch into the riddles – ‘Straniero, ascolta’ – must have been heard outside in the street. I think that as she develops the role (and she’s singing it in Paris next season) she will relax into it with aplomb. She is a world beater.
Alfred Kim’s Calaf was stentorian, with plenty of spinto power. He is not the most subtle of tenors and Breth didn’t seem to be overly interested in the character, so there was an element of singing machine to the performance. And he has a strange way with words starting with the letter S, somehow separating it from what follows.
As is often the case, Liù won the audience’s sympathies. Guanqun Yu melted hearts with her delicately spun phrases – her first floated B flat was delicious – but she also has decibels and was still audible over the aural mass at the end of Act I. She is an affecting actor and made the most of her final scene. Inho Jeong was a surprisingly young Timur with a smooth bass of which I would like to hear more. Liviu Holender, Magnus Dietrich and Michael Porter earned their fees as Ping, Pang and Pong, constantly manipulating the action.
I had worried that the end of the opera might be anticlimactic – I admit that I rather enjoy Alfano’s blowsy ending to the opera. But as the final soft chords played, the flute legato immaculate, Turandot walked to the back of the stage and stared through the bars to an endless series of prison cells that stretched before her: like everybody else she was now trapped in a jail of her own creation, a hell with no escape and no end. Like Ronchetti’s introduction, the conclusion was chilling.
Francis Muzzu
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