Chaos in Korea as director quits Turandot
OperaA barely recognisable version of Puccini’s last opera opened in Seoul on Sunday after its director stormed out hours before the premiere and many rows of seats were removed after poor ticket sales.
La Scala director Davide Livermore said he refused to have his name associated with the $13.8 million production after disagreements with the production company. He claimed the company’s ‘decisions diverted the production from the original concept and the high standards required of a director of my calibre.’
“Again 2024 Turandot” has attracted some of the biggest names in opera. Conductors Placido Domingo, Jose Cura and Paolo Carignani lead the musical team, while sopranos Maria Guleghina, Asmik Grigorian, tenors Yusif Eyvazov and Brian Jagde are featured among the star-studded cast.
Full report here.
photo: Salzburg Festival
At least he didn’t attempt to declare martial law, so there’s that.
$13.8 million??? Is this a Met co-production?? (The Met couldn’t afford it, but that is of little concern…)
South Korea seems to be a disaster in many aspects besides having excellent musicians.
Management and staff often do the best work they can, but having alone Inkinen and Jaap as chief conductors without having them conducted these major orchestras before appointment – tells everything.
The organisers of these massively expensive opera spectaculars frequently seem to end up with major problems. The conductor Giuseppe Raffa toured open air Aidas around much of the world with several cancelled for a variety of reasons. I see the Report mentions Zhang Yimou’s 2003 Turandot production. I assume that must be related to his production that first appeared in Florence and was then transferred to one of the courtyards forming part of Beijing’s Forbidden City in September 1998 with Zubin Mehta conducting. I attended one Beijing performance and it was certainly a stunning production in a stunning setting even though some of the singing failed to reach quite the same standard. Top price tickets then were $1,200.
That Beiging production was produced by the Opera on the Original Sites outfit. They encountered major problems, although not with the opera; rather two similarly high-priced performances of the Verdi Requiem scheduled for successive Sundays in a 2,000 seat theatre. As in Korea, ticket sales were poor. The two performances were then merged, relocated to the 9,000+ seat barn-like Great Hall of the People, ticket prices slashed (unless you had already bought the much more expensive ones when not even partial refunds were offered) and opened up to the general public. The amplification was a disaster – so poor we could not hear anything during the first two minutes or so. Then with children running around all over the place the artistic experience was even more of a disaster.
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