It’s all about the music: Opera Holland Park chorus & City of London Sinfonia on terrific form under Naomi Woo in powerful, celebratory Turandot

Puccini: Turandot – José de Eça – Opera Holland Park (Photo: Pablo Strong)

Puccini: Turandot; Anne Sophie Duprels, José de Eça, Fflur Wyn, Jihoon Kim, Robert, Burt, Josef Jeongmeen Ahn, Joseph Buckmaster, Zwakele Tshabalala, director: Eleanor Burke, City of London Sinfonia, conductor: Naomi Woo; Opera Holland Park

A powerful evening from Opera Holland Park’s chorus, youth chorus and the City of London Sinfonia who fill the auditorium with music, in a performance perhaps unsubtle at times yet always thrilling.

Puccini’s Turandot is the only one of the composer’s operas not performed at Opera Holland Park. To celebrate the company’s 30th anniversary, the centenary of the first performance of Turandot and soprano Anne Sophie Duprels 25-year association with the company, Turandot was presented in a concert staging on Tuesday 23 June at Opera Holland Park. Naomi Woo conducted with Duprels as Turandot, José de Eça as Calaf, Fflur Wyn as Liu, Jihoon Kim as Timur, Robert Burt as Altoum, Josef Jeongmeen Ahn, Joseph Buckmaster and Zwakele Tshabalala as Ping, Pang and Pong, and Wonsick Oh as the Mandarin.

Though performed in a reduced orchestration the City of London Sinfonia spilled out of the pit and onto the stage (trumpets and trombones stage right, percussion with its array of tam-tams stage left). An expanded Opera Holland Park chorus sat on the main stage and sang from copies, and were joined at times by the Opera Holland Park Youth Chorus. This latter was formed in 2025 and this was its first appearance on one of OHP’s operatic stagings.

Puccini: Turandot – Anne Sophie Duprels – Opera Holland Park (Photo: Pablo Strong)

From the outset, Naomi Woo shaped the opera commandingly and the orchestral sound filled the auditorium with colour and movement. Too much so, at times, frankly, as in the work’s more intimate moments you felt that lack of a pit to cover the sound. This was a loud performance of a loud opera, and the quieter, more reflective passages could have done with being emphasised more. That said the orchestra and choral contributions were effectively the real highlights of the evening. For Turandot to work you need to be carried away by the whole, not just thrilled by ‘Nessun dorma’ and here Woo and her forces definitely blew us away.

There is a story about soprano Joan Sutherland meeting fellow soprano Pauline Tinsley backstage after one of Tinsley performances as Brunnhilde in The Ring. Tinsley was a soprano who famously made the journey from early Verdi heroines to Wagner and Strauss (she was a memorable Elektra). Sutherland asked Tinsley whether she thought Turandot was a lyric role, and Tinsley said she thought it was (Tinsley sang Turandot with Welsh National Opera in the late 1970s). Sutherland then turned to her husband, Richard Bonynge and said words to the effect of ‘told you’. Sutherland famously recorded Turandot in 1972. 

The accepted modern way of approaching the role is for Wagnerian and neo-Wagnerian sopranos to bring real heft to the part. Few if any, however, can manage the laser-like concentration and line of the ideal (listen to the live recordings from Covent Garden in 1937 with Eva Turner on YouTube).

It is clear that the role is on the edge of the possible for Anne Sophie Duprels, at least with an orchestra so vividly present as this one. And unlike many of the soloists, who sang from the fore-stage, she was largely confined to the main stage, behind the orchestra. We did not get the sort of icy, laser-like line that Turner gives us (and Sutherland, too, perhaps with help of the microphone). Instead, Duprels’ Turandot was all fierce intensity allied to iron control. This was an impressive incarnation, even if not quite what we imagine. 

Though billed as a concert staging, the soloists were all off the book and dressed with some thought. Duprels wore an off the shoulder black gown that seemed to hover between Sargent’s Madame X, Gone with the Wind and Eva Peron! Throughout the riddle scene this sense of display and controlled fury were to the fore. This contrasted strongly with José de Eça’s burnished, firm baritonal tenor in way that managed to work, and to thrill. Then in Act Three, she did not so much thaw as suddenly crack.

There was some minimal production, directed by Eleanor Burke. Largely this was simply efficient blocking, but there were quirks. We had a child Turandot (with a music box) who was present at the beginning and end of the opera. And, more disturbingly, during the closing scene there was something rather coercive about José de Eça’s Calaf along with Duprels submission as Turandot. Burke seemed to be suggesting a reading that could be explored further.

José de Eça brought a firm, burnished baritonal quality to Calaf, singing with admirable firmness and cohesion. He could and did sing quietly, but these moments were rare. The performance, though admirable and with much to admire, narrowly missed being stentorian: I wanted more light and shade. However, in the great moments he did thrill and successfully conveyed the character’s weird obsessiveness, almost controlling.  

Fflur Wyn made a touching Liu, singing with moving sensitivity in her death scene. Earlier on she made ‘Signore ascolata’ into something beautifully touching. However, in these moments Puccini thins his orchestra out to allow the soprano space, but elsewhere in the opera soprano singing Liu has to find an element of spinto grit too. Wyn does not quite have this yet, and sensibly she did not force which meant that her contributions to the ensembles were a little recessed in terms of sound. But all in all it was a moving role debut.

There was little that was comic about Josef Jeongmeen Ahn, Joseph Buckmaster and Zwakele Tshabalala as Ping, Pang and Pong. In Acts One and Three they were fierce rather forbidding figures, yet in their opening scene to Act Two they revealed a touching element of humanity. Robert Burt made a fine Altoum, bringing a real sense of personality to the role. As Timur, Jihoon Kim was duly rather noble in Act One, but in Act Three he dug far deeper and his closing scene was moving indeed. Wonsick Oh made a vibrant Mandarin, commanding in his presence and even manning the wind machine at times! Chorus member Jamie Formoy managed to die thrillingly as the Prince of Persia.

Eleanor Burke clearly has some interesting thoughts about Turandot and many of her solutions to the challenges of a concert staging were effective and thoughtful, but the stray points I mentioned earlier left you thinking that she has a more considered production of the opera in her.

In the programme book, George Hall contributed and admirably lucid account of the work’s complex textual history. We heard it in the traditional version, i.e. Alfano’s ending as revised and cut by Toscanini. I am not sure that the full Alfano ending has ever been staged in London (certainly it has been performed in concert, albeit rarely). 

This was an evening where the music counted. For all the fine solo contributions it was the magnificent contribution of the chorus and orchestra that counted, along with Naomi Woo’s commanding way with the score.