![]() ![]() ![]() Until recently, “Turandot” productions tended to lean heavily on grotesque Asian stereotypes by using “yellowface” makeup to make white Chinese actors appear, among other indignities. The source material was initially thorny: Puccini’s librettists used an 18th-century piece itself based on a collection of folk tales from several centuries earlier. The ending has been subject to periodic changes since, but most companies (including HGO here) use the one written by Puccini’s contemporary, Franco Alfano.įor years, however, its end was the least of the opera’s problems. He also died before he could complete the finale, a love duet between the title princess and Kalaf, the foreign prince determined to win her hand.Īt the opera’s premiere in April 1926, conductor Arturo Toscanini simply laid down his baton when, as he reportedly put it, “here the maestro laid down his pen”. Incorporating the tonal innovations of his peers such as Debussy and Stravinsky, he was also careful to evoke the mythical Chinese setting of the opera. ![]() “Young people were really excited to hear this music, but I fell in love with the music itself.”ĭetails: $25 to $210 71 Already the leading opera composer of his time, Puccini outdid himself with “Turandot”. “I took a picture and I was like, there’s not a single gray hair,” says Heaston, who lives in the Houston area and has appeared in several HGO Digital productions over the past year. ![]() She recently sang Liu for the Maryland Lyric Opera the previous time, shortly after singing Mimi in HGO’s 2018 production of Puccini’s “La bohème,” was aimed at a “ridiculously receptive” - and young - audience in Guadalajara. HGO’s latest “Turandot,” which will be presented at the Wortham Center from April 22 to May 8, will be Heaston’s third time performing an opera that has fascinated and bewildered audiences for nearly a century. “I’m that girl, that unrequited love, the nice girl who really loves the lead tenor and he has no time for her,” says the soprano and Houston Grand Opera Studio alumnus. Nicole Heaston in Houston Grand Opera’s “Turandot”ĭiscussing Liu in “Turandot,” Nicole Heaston draws an easy parallel between her role in Giacomo Puccini’s latest opera and another classic: that of Michaela in “Carmen.” ![]()
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