ATLANTA—Dress rehearsal was last Thursday. A tone sounded. An usher called out "Everyone will enter through Portal B" The crowd surged in, politely of course, and as they entered the red and purple hall, an "oooooh!" sounded from several in the group. "This is like an old world opera house," said one. The Cobb Energy Centre theatre has scallop shaped scarlet box seats climbing up each side of the stage, undulating mesh kites on the ceiling, and best of all, an intimate scale and good acoustics.
Puccini's Turandot was the first opera held in the new arts venue. Soprano Lori Phillips performed the title role with assurance and passion. Lyric Tenor Phillip Webb sang Calaf, the prince destined to melt Turandot's murderous heart and free her father, the Emperor, from his mysterious oath. Webb's physical presence and voice evoke his hero, Pavarotti. His warm masculinity made it seem inevitable that Princess Turandot and slave Liu should love him. The good design of the theatre allowed him to sing gently and naturally. Both the opera's previous homes, the Fox and the Civic Center, had acoustical woes which often led singers to strain.
Most operas have opera logic, a dreamlike, Jungian quality. Turandot takes it to an extreme. The staging took that ball and ran with it, in particular, it ran with the ball which poets and lovers look to, the moon. A huge moon/pearl rose in the sky, shielded the glittering red and white and black princess, and sat in the claw of a very large dragon. No one realized the dragon is there until the moon rose and changed into a giant pearl. No one realized the heads of Turandot's failed suitors were there until the moon illuminated them. Horrors! When the princess shed her first tear and felt her first love, the moon shed a benign light on her. Her father seemed quite relieved not to have to abet her serial killing any longer. China was free of a curse.
The staging, the acting, the music and the Lee Harper dancers brought Puccini's fairy tale to rich life.
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