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Puccini: Turandot / Gergiev, Schnaut, Botha

Puccini / Botha / Wiener Philarmoniker / Gergiev
Release Date: 01/17/2006 
Label:  Tdk   Catalog #: OPTURSFR  
Composer:  Giacomo Puccini
Performer:  Vincente Ombuena,  Boaz Daniel,  Paata Burchuladze,  Gabriele Schnaut,   ... 
Conductor:  Valery Gergiev
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Vienna State Opera Chorus,  Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Number of Discs: 1 
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Notes and Editorial Reviews

Giacomo PUCCINI (1858-1924) - Turandot

In this version, the conclusion of the opera was composed by Luciano BERIO (1925 – 2003)

Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Stage Director: David Pountney
Music Director: Valery Gergiev

Picture Format: 16:9
Sound Format: LPCM stereo
Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Running Time: 125 minutes
Booklet Languages: English, German, French
Subtitles: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish
Recording Date August 2002

PUCCINI'S SWAN SONG

"Turandot has a unique place among Puccini's works because of its dramaturgical complexity, the intertwining of the exotic and Read more the fairy-tale, of tragedy and comedy.

David Pountney's vision is based on the idea that with Turandot Puccini has taken up an artistic perspective of the 20s and 30s which has been described as fear of civilisation: the fear that the fatal combination of rapid technological progress, gradually spinning out of control, and inhuman political systems poses a fundamental threat to all human values.

This concept is immediately apparent from the stage set and the costumes; the people, the slaves and the controlling executives of the regime all wear grotesque masques and are equipped with terrible murder weapons; their movements are mechanical, robot-like, and they set huge cogwheels in motion and keep them going; this machinery represents an inhuman, rigid society and suggests a nightmarish atmosphere.

Cast:

Turandot - Gabriele Schnaut
Kalaf - Johan Botha
Pong - Steve Davislim
Altoum - Robert Tear
Pang - Vicente Ombuena
Mandarin - Robert Bork
Timor - Paata Burchuladze
Ping - Boaz Daniel

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R E V I E W S:
"The main visual frisson of the 2002 Salzburg Festival was undoubtedly David Pountney’s extravagant (in every sense) staging of Puccini’s last, unfinished work, presented with Berio’s controversial completion. Johan Engels’s three-tiered set fills every inch of the stage at the Grosses Festspielhaus with side-wings carrying it to the extremities. The theme of its metallic decor is to propose a brutalised society: engines of death – cogs suggesting torture, guillotines and body-parts – are prominent throughout, down to Liù’s death scene. Sometimes the effect is risible, as when we see hand-operated torsos of beautiful girls floating across the stage; but, by and large, the sense of a harsh world where human values are of little consequence is admirably and arrestingly conveyed." -- Alan Blyth, Gramophone
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Works on This Recording

1. Turandot by Giacomo Puccini
Performer:  Vincente Ombuena (Tenor), Boaz Daniel (Baritone), Paata Burchuladze (Bass),
Gabriele Schnaut (Soprano), Johan Botha (Tenor), Robert Tear (Tenor),
Cristina Gallardo-Domâs (Soprano), Steve Davislim (Tenor), Robert Bork (Baritone)
Conductor:  Valery Gergiev
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Vienna State Opera Chorus,  Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Period: Romantic 
Written: 1926; Italy 

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