Week 2: Some Thoughts about Turandot in the ROH & Jamming on the Turandot Theme

Turandot at the Royal Opera House

Date: 24th March, 2025

Time: 7:30pm

Venue: Royal Opera House

No one can argue about this, but the best place to study opera is obviously the opera house. So, here I am at the Royal Opera House (ROH) watching Puccini’s Turandot with my friend Benjamin Thorn who received a ticket from me as his birthday present. This trip kills two birds in one stone as I am also study the character of Liu for my dissertation project. One word can conclude my thoughts on the production, Spectacular. Definitely not because our friend, Matthew Brown’s parents are in that production nor biased by my adoration to Puccini’s music, the flourishing staging, the delivery of music and the delicacy of the singing that night is just spot on.

Coming to the opera house does not only allows me to familiarise the plot more, it also gave me new insights of the opera, especially on the Turandot’s character. (Unlike Ben and Matt who only focused on SeokJong Baek’s Nessun Dorma out of the entire opera) In preparing for this project, I have familiarised myself on Brigit Nillson’s Turandot very well. Therefore, when Sondra Radvanovsky, the Turandot of the night, starts singing, it really caught me by surprise with the lighter timbre in her voice compared with Brigit’s. It almost felt like Maria Callas’s version of Turandot, something that sounds wrong to me. Her voice doesn’t come across to me as a good fit of Turandot’s “block-of-ice“ character. I seems to have preferred a voice with a voice a richer timbre and the affect the voice for a character as impermeable as Turandot. Hence, also projects Nillson’s legacy and the uniqueness of her singing. Don’t get me wrong though, Radvanovsky is still a fabulous opera singer and her ability of singing “In questa reggia” at this standard is very admirable but I guess it never hurts if you don’t compare. At the same time, we also have to understand that there isn’t many singers in this world born with such a rich voice as Nillson’s do.

This trip really makes me think. It makes me understand that even if I include all the Nillson’s well-know role in the projects, there could be a chance I am still presenting very distinctive roles from different opera rather than alluding my project towards Nillson. What we want is not a combination of lines from Turandot, Isolde, Electra and the rest of them, but the way that Nillson performs those roles which makes the prominent figure in the opera cannon.

Meeting with Genie

Date: 25th March, 2025

Time: 4- 5:30pm

Venue: Pats Pa 11

Our meeting this week is slightly different from the previous ones that we have done. The meeting take place during the lecture time and our lecturer Dr. Tom Armstrong will be come in and out and making note on our meeting so that he can provide us some feedback towards the end of the lecture. With all the set-up, this section is really only an hour long.

Our main focus this week is on “In questa reggia” from Puccini’s Turandot. (Absolutely not because I have bias on Puccini and I have watched Turandot in the Royal Opera House the day before the meeting). I have extracted three melodic lines from the music as possible materials to work with Genie, which shown below:

(Theme 1)

(Theme 2)

(Theme 3)

• the difference between our two voices (Folky and pop and operatic)

• we just tried how far we can go without technology modifications, enhancement > Make reasons for using the effect.

• Each of the attempt is different, the third one is extreme attempt (exploring timbre and texture of the voice)

• listening > Get more comfortable to sing together in different styles.