Of all these and other voices that undertook Turandot in her first seasons of life, the one that most brazenly commands the role is Dame Eva Turner’s. And though she was a noted Brünnhilde and Fidelio, Turandot became Turner’s signature role from the time of her first performance of it, in Brescia shortly after the world premiere. She sang it in Italy and South America, in London and Chicago, always to extraordinary acclaim. Though her discography is not extensive for a singer of her stature, it does include “In questa reggia,” and to hear her domineering sound, even in calibre from bottom to top and always in the centers of pitches, sweeping through the aria utterly unimpeded, is to experience a too-rare phenomenon. In the climactic pages of the aria is a kind of dark ecstasy, an ecstasy of sublimation, compounded of an insatiable bloodlust and a fevered denial of the sexual and romantic impulses that threaten to overwhelm all resistance. That is what the extremity of the writing is meant to convey, and only a voice of this format and freedom can fully convey it. The presence of a kind of cold purity completes the sound picture.

Rising to combat this ecstasy, to join it and then overcome it, is the top fifth of the romantic tenor voice, which must contain both the treasured squillo and, ideally, enough warmth of timbre to suggest an ardor beyond mere conquest. It also needs the melting capacity suggested by those superb diminuendos of Fleta’s. (Try his Aïda Tomb Scene with Florence Austral, complete with chorus and contralto. You’ll hear why Toscanini thought he’d do.) Lauri-Volpi, passed over for the world premiere, assumed the role of Calaf at the Metropolitan. With his lean, brilliant, wide-ranging spinto tenor voice, superior legato line, and mastery of the swell-and-diminish, he must have been close to ideal, and his jealous-divo temperament, matched up against Jeritza’s volatility, must have set off competitive sparks. Jan Kiepura, who like Fleta we tend to categorize as an essentially lyric tenor, but again with a penetrating upper range and an attention-seeking personality, was a frequent Calaf, and the French tenor Georges Thill, with his beautiful “big lyric” timbre and exhilaratingly released upper range, sang it at La Scala opposite Turner. By the late ’30s, a trio of tenors we would be more inclined to call true dramatics were taking it on: Giovanni Martinelli, who partnered Turner in the Covent Garden Coronation Season performances of 1937; Galliano Masini, the exciting Alvaro of the early-’40s Cetra Forza del destino, who sang it with her in Chicago; and Merli, on that initial complete recording.

With respect to Liù, the contrast between the earliest choices (dalla Rizza and Mason) is intriguing—the former a big-boned verista with strongly vibrated tone who had sung all the Puccini heroines to the composer’s enthusiastic approval, as well as the soprano leads in many a veristic opera by Giordano, Mascagni, Zandonai, et al.; the latter an American lyric soprano with a voice of virginal purity, admirably controlled line, and (to judge from her recordings) rather reserved temperament, who was another longtime luminary of the Chicago company, but at this time singing regularly in Italy in parts that included Cio-Cio-San and Mimí. As it turned out, by the time of Turandot’s premiere, dalla Rizza felt that her voice had become too heavy for what had turned out a distinctly lyrical role,^(I) while Mason had gotten pregnant. So the honor of the first Liù went to Zamboni, an emotionally compelling artist whose voice was pronouncedly lyric, yet guided on a cleanly etched line and, like that of Bori (who would have made a perfect Liù), was  projective enough to take on parts like Adriana Lecouvreur and Manon Lescaut, which she later recorded with Merli. And we must not pass over Magda Olivero, who entered the scene in the ’30s, in time to join Cigna and Merli as the Liù of their recording. I described her vocal capacities and interpretive inclinations as best I could in my discussion of Iris, and I see no need to add to it, except to emphasize that she was another singer of leading veristic roles that call for strength and color.