Finally, I must extend my gratitude to Jeffrey Miller (for many years associated with Opera Delaware in several capacities, including some dozen years as Musical Director), who has been kind enough to send along the pages of the Alfano ending in its original, complete form, along with the disc of great final scenes recorded by Josephine Barstow and John Mauceri with Scottish Opera Chorus and Orchestra, on which that version of the finale is performed. ^(I) I’ve so far had occasion for only a single listening (while tracking both scores) to this music, and for far too little time on bar-to-bar visual comparisons. It is immediately clear, though, that Toscanini’s redactions, incorporated into the standard edition, operate on the Thousand Little Cuts principle. One of the longest of these redactions is in the bars following The Kiss (Alfano’s dissonant clatter, with extreme tempo swings, gradually subsiding into three bars of suspenseful waiting before Turandot’s “Chi è mai di me?” all chopped down to two bars of tremolando, loud thuds in the bass, and a lunga pausa), Toscanini’s shrinkage begins as early as Turandot’s reply to Calàf’s opening salvo, at “Che mai osi, straniero?“, and by the most primitive means, radically foreshortening note values in the sung lines (and, of course, those of the chords held under them, or of other movements in the orchestral scoring), or by truncating orchestral material between the vocal exchanges (e. g., bringing in Calàf’s “La tua anima è in alto” under the last bar of Turandot’s  “ma l’anima è lassù!“, thus expunging the two orchestral bars marked sostenendo. This makes Calàf interrupt Turandot, overlap with her, rather than absorbing her declaration before replying, and that creates a different dramatic moment. And so it proceeds. Two cuts are made in “Dal primo pianto” (which is the most compelling stretch of writing in the scene), one of which takes in the ascent to the top C that Lehmann and Roselle included in their early recordings of the passage, and one more fairly extensive one after Calàf reveals his name, where the full version gives Turandot some bars in which to exult. Otherwise, little snips and rewrites.

To properly judge any added advantage of the full Alfano ending would be possible only in the theatre, with two superior singers who could also use the extended version to act the transformative event convincingly. Except for the restorations in “Il primo pianto,” my impression of the uncut edition is simply of more mediocre music—but the sheer added length, if well sung, might at least make for a more credible turnaround for the Princess. The recording is just adequate enough to suggest that possibility. Barstow was a fine artist, able to persuade as Lady Macbeth with a soprano of less than dramatic calibre. But she was past her best days here, effective at lower dynamics but afflicted by tonal jitteriness at mezzo-forte or above. Lando Bartolini’s tenor has strength and metal, and he hangs in with the punishing setting. He’s a blunt singer, though. The orchestra and chorus sound splendid. What I’d be really curious about is a revision built out from the fragments left by Puccini that Alfano passed over, as noted by Petty and Tuttle. Where that would have led I’m sure I don’t know. The assumption always seems to be that Puccini’s finished ending would have taken him (and us) on into the modernist future. I wonder. After all, following several excursions toward other narrative strategies, with what he surely knew to be his final statement Puccini turned back to the E-19 story of the protagonist couple—dispossessed hero and highborn lady—in its pure Romanticized medieval form. We might have had music to match.

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My return to the Met’s revival did not go well—or, rather, the Met’s revival did not go well upon my return. At the time of my ticket purchase, Anna Netrebko was the scheduled Turandot. I did not imagine this a favorable role for her at any point in her career. But she always gives a performance, and tracking the trajectory of so gifted an artist always holds some interest. So I’d chosen a spot high in the Family Circle, right against the auditorium’s left side wall. That was precisely where I’d been on my first hearing of Netrebko, as Lyudmila in Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, which she was singing in a performance by the visiting Kirov Opera. That was 24 years ago, April/May of 1998. She was vocally exhilarating (you can check her out on the prevailingly good complete recording), and took over the theatre with her personality—one of those eye-to-ear-ratio triumphs that only opera provides, for the acoustics up in that far corner are wonderful. What would she sound like up there now? And could this cast conceivably not be better than the earlier one?

Netrebko, of course, is under political banishment, so I cannot answer the first question. To answer the second: yes, it could. Netrebko’s replacement was the Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla (the program’s transliteration) Monastyrska. One hopes that this was simply a bad artistic miscalculation (Monastyrska has sung here before, but not for several years), and not A Statement. With a shallow, constricted voice, weak in the middle and lower ranges, blurred in word formation, shrill at the top, capped by an occasional forced loud note, she was by no means an improvement on her predecessor, Christine Goerke. I had assumed that Ferruccio Furlanetto would at least provide tonal volume and personal authority as Timur; he could not. Quite like Michelle Bradley of the fall cast, Ermonela Jaho made her way through “Signore, ascolta!” on a gingerly thread of pale, unsupported tone that registered none of the aria’s emotional opportunities. She is scheduled to sing Violetta next season, and Bradley Aïda. How? The one point of marginal improvement on the first cast was Yonghoon Lee, as Calàf. He has a consistent, well-balanced tenor with a modicum of squillo in the upper range, and has taken the trouble to get the Italian language in his throat. The voice hasn’t much expansion or warmth, so never quite becomes thrilling, but he commits himself to phrases and effects, and after hearing him as Don Carlo, Manrico, and now Calàf, I’d rate him the most consistently enjoyable tenor the company has for such roles.

After the Riddle Scene, with a second preposterously long intermission yawning and the prospect of more musical dead spots and more mechanical gesticulation in place of acting, I cut my losses (of time, energy, and spiritual investment) and opted out of Act 3. So I cannot tell you how “Nessun dorma” or “Tu che di gel,” or the rigors of the Alfano/Toscanini finale, went. Or rather, I can, but won’t, since I didn’t actually hear them.

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NEXT TIME: I’ll be undertaking a retrospective assessment of this sorely afflicted season, together with some observations of what one of my editors termed a “more cosmic” sort on the precarious standing of our artform. Since it will extract more than the usual mental effort and is not tied to any particular event, I’ll grant myself a modest easement and schedule it for Friday, June 10.