Turandot - Dame Gwyneth Jones - Part 1

[Agorante]

People who say Nillson had a bigger voice are full of beans. Just the opposite.  Jones in the theater was amazing. But quite early on she lost control of her instrument. I heard her first as Aida. I heard her last a lady Macbeth - I had to walk out it was so terrible but it still was plenty loud.

[lhrlyc]

I loved this production and saw it several times [with Jones, Dimitrova, Marton and others]

[MastersoftheOpera]

Fellow opera lovers here's my 2 cents: Gwyneth is great as Turandot; she has the right type of delivery and commits to the role dramatically. My all-time favorite is still Birgit Nilsson. I also like Ghena Dimitrova. The role calls for a heavy dramatic soprano therefore voices like Nilsson, Dimitrova and Jones are perfect for it. Lyric voices like Sutherland, Price or Caballe (who actually sang the role; it was awful!) don't fit the character's powerful persona.

[Keikobadspeaks]

Gwyneth Jones looks great in this Andrei Serban production, which, after all, was custom made for her in 1984. The character design and production style suit Jones's dramatic temperament and vocalism like a glove. This is one of the great Covent Garden productions in the house's recent history. Given that this has been filmed, we can perhaps hope that a DVD will be formally released sooner or later, in particular as Covent Garden is continuing to open up its rich archives.

[SCN2003]

Splendid portrayal. Jones is my top choice for this role.

[dannymaestro]

This is good, but that is, with Turandot, that it´s almost always the same singer who next week will sing Brynnhilde or Elektra and I believe that´s kind of wrong. Ms. Jones does it very good. Her natural B and high c misses the vibrato, it´s simply to high for her to use full voice. But I like it very much. The best Turandot after Nilsson.

[52dalibor]

away with you note spotters to the poricany train junction.

[aspsingr]

Post bonisolli with his 4 high c's on no no principessa altera..... ardente. it was on youtube and now its gone it should be back!

[operamagnus]

An acceptable performance. Somewhat of a wobble, and not so pleasant high notes. The dramatic intensity is there, but I feel this role did not show her voice at her best - it sounds somewhat thin, though it is clear it is big enough. I only wish the young Flagstad would have sung this role, she could outsing any singer in terms of ease, size, freedom and support of the voice.

[daffodilnyc]

Does this role show anyone at their best? It's brutal... stunning but brutal.

[operamagnus]

Very few, but Nilsson immediately comes to mind.

[Royalorgans]

Joan Sutherland does a great job at this too

[Joeleole]

Hey gslazar can you upload Figlio del Cielo which comes after the riddle scene, it's my favourite section in the opera an noone uploads it ever! Ta Muchly!!!

[gohar002]

the better is mdme Sutherland...

[RichardFucker]

Also April Evans, an American soprano is excellent as Turandot. Her approach is different. I think with more slancio, perhaps a bit more poetic.

[nobisotti]

is this cats????

[BeauTenor]

Like I said, that's my opinion. No need to call me a liar. Caballe was NOT a dramatic soprano. Turandot was a role WRITTEN for dramatic soprano.

[BeauTenor]

She may have, but IMHO, the fact remains that she was a bit underpowered to be the IDEAL Turandot.

[gohar002]

Where you've find that Turandot was written for dramatic soprano?

[BeauTenor]

Have you ever BEEN in a production of Turandot? The orchestra is HUGE, as is the chorus. The most sucessful Turandots have ALL been dramatic sopranos; you have to have THRUST under the voice just to get up and over the orchestra. At times (like Wagner), it gets so loud you can barely hear yourself, much less the person next to you.

[burgerz28]

Sutherland also found success in this role, she did a wonderful job, as did Price.

[BeauTenor]

Like I've said before, to my knowledge, Sutherland never sang Turandot on stage, and I'd almost bet my ass that Leontyne didn't either. Sucess in a studio and success on a stage are two different things. Who knows how well Joan would have done. Leontyne I think would have ruined her voice with rep like this. It's too heavy. She may be only be on stage about 25 minutes, but it's heavier than anything but maybe Brunnhilde and Elektra.

[Operanut9]

Beau,

I agree. This role would have obliterated Price's and Sutherland's voices with one performance. Dame Melba essayed the Siegfried Brunhilde once and vowed NEVER to go near it again. I give Price and Sutherland credit for having better sense than to try this on stage.

[raywong]

Dame Gwyneth is incomparable in this role. The Royal Opera will be releasing some dvds from their archives under their "heritage" series. Hope that this one will make it into the list. After all, the Serban production is one of their best productions in the 1980s.

[BeauTenor]

I don't agree at all. I think it takes a voice of this size and power to deliver the role effectively. Caballe was a great singer, but she less effective because she didn't have the requisite heft of tone. No singer in living memopry had a voice bigegr than Jones, and the fact that she had a LONG career shows that she made the corect choices, no matter what her detractors might say. She does no wrong in my eyes.

[Otellogv]

I totally agree with you, BeauTenor. Dame Gwyneth is one of my favourites even yet. She brings such femininity and passion to each of her roles (I love her Leonora in Trovatore!). However, just to throw someone else into the running as the best Turandot ... Leonie Rysanek? She did sing it live in her early career and made a roof-raising studio recording of 'In questa reggia' in her RCA recital. I love Rysanek's Turandot (excs) too but Dame G is untouched!

[BeauTenor]

I have that RCA recital...the entire thing is absolutely FABULOUS singing. It's almost like the higher she gets, the more comfortable she sounds. Rysanek had the requisite size voice for it too. She had a HUGE instrument, probably second in size only to Gwyneth.

[Otellogv]

Yes, I also have the recital - it's quite something. Rysanek sounds amazingly at ease when she is singing above the stave, particularly at f to fffffff! I think that this can also be said of Dame Gwyneth although her voice seems to have more vulnerability and a stronger lower register (probably due to her initial mezzo career). Although both singers lack Nilsson's sheen at the very top, they had a wider 'girth' to their voices than Nilsson ever did.

[operagodess78]

Birgit Nilsson is bigger. And better

[PonselleLover]

Though I do like Jones's Turandot, you should listen to Eva Turner here on YouTube, and mostly to Gina Cigna's Turandot : she has a voice ten times bigger than Gwineth's...

[BeauTenor]

I don't think Cingna's voice was ten times bigger than Gwyneth. In fact, I'd be willing to bet Gwyneth's was bigger. I saw her live, and let me tell you; my ears were literally sore afterwards. I've heard Turner on disc, Cigna too, but I don't think either one had the same amplitude of sound that Jones could generate.

[PonselleLover]

I also heard Jones live and had the honor to talk with her after the performance and, as I told you, I have great respect and admiration for her. But I'm amazed that, owning yourself the Cigna's Turandot, you maintain her voice was not as big as Jones'. She's a sonorous hurricane ! As regards Turner, what I like best in her Turandot is that she doesn't glottaly catapult the high Cs, they slip in the phrase and sound flute-like.

[BeauTenor]

Well, It's not that easy to compare; Cigna's recording was made in 1937, Turner's before that. As much as I admire both singers, I am still not convinced either one had a larger voice than Gwyneth. But, it's just my opinion. Every one I know (and I know some OLD opera queens) agrees that Jones had the biggest voice they ever heard. And, IMHO, I don't think Jones has huge glottal attacks, not when you compare her to someone like Callas who REALLY did.

[PonselleLover]

Well, it's true that it's hard to compare with sopranos I never - unfortunately - heard live. Anyway, I love the 3 of them, for different reasons. By the way, Jones was very accessible and friendly when I talked with her, not distant, not a Diva in the bad sense at all. Don't forget to listen to the chinese soprano - see my post above.

[BeauTenor]

I did, she's not bad at all. Have you seen the vid of Anna Shafajinskaia? I sang in Turandot with her in Dallas. She was FABULOUS. You should give it a go.

[PonselleLover]

Yes I did. I had even found her out before Yanrong Liu and I posted good critics about her. The voice is not as smooth and morbida as Liu's but the whole performance is electrifying : she's a real tigress on stage, with esasy high Cs too. Oh, you're a singer ! that's great !

[PonselleLover]

Have you seen the Yanrong Liu Turandot in the Chinese edition (parts 1 to 4) here on YouTube ? I've just found it today and fell down on my knees. A torrential, fluid, crystal-clear voice with easy high Cs and slipping in the phrase, not glottally catapulted, full and round low notes. And the lady is the most feminine and attractive Turandot I've ever seen.

[lovesmusic1]

I have to agree with the above statement .. Gwyneth Jones was way past her prime here and the whole production looks shoddy.

[kevano11]

sad to listen to Dame Gwyneth here , her voice seems so out of control and worn , the high notes are off pitch and forced , and she cuts short the high bs and c . I saw her perform this role and wished she had not agreed to sing it , compare this to the paris opera production where Caballe sings with great beauty and precision , the high notes centered perfectly ..I feel this role always holds a danger of over-singing which results in the screaming delivery which destroys the music.

[BeauTenor]

I love Caballe, but she was miscast in this role, and as Isolde, and as Gioconda. The voice simply wasn't big enough for them.

[burgerz28]

I disagree her voice is enormous what did her in was her timbre its too bright for those roles

[BeauTenor]

Look, you can have a LOUD voice, but that's not the same thing as a HUGE voice. I'm talking amplitude and weight, not volume. Bigger voices like Jones have more amplitude, which is why they get over or through the orchestra in big roles like this better than someone like Caballe. On my recording of Caballe in Turandot her top notes sound...well, kind of like a ray gun gone crazy or something. She was a great singer, but a hochdrammatische soprano she was NOT.

[FairPlayist]

I believe that copyright in this material rests with the British Broadcasting Corporation (looks like a rip-off recording of an original BBC live broadcast, complete with English-language surtitles. More importantly, it raises "repeat broadcast" royalty issues for all the marvellous performers. I hope noone from the Musicians' Union ever sees this !

[gslazar]

You maybe right about the copyright issue but what good is that if the performance is not issued commerically. It does no one good to sit in a vault unseen for many years and then the media, if not digial, deteriates and is gone forever. If this was released commerically, I would buy it immediately. In the meantime, sharing this is the only alternative we have.

[FairPlayist]

Maybe a reason for it not being issued commercially was that the BBC were unable to reach agreement with the unions etc - this has happened before. (I've been watching out for a commercial release for years, having seen this production "live" three times). The question stands, how will the performers (especially the orchestra and chorus) be recompensed for this material being available here? Try living on an orchestral musician's pension...

[gslazar]

I agree with you. But if "performers" want to be compensated, they need to come to some kind of agreement. Otherwise, they get nothing and this kind of sharing will continue. I believe most opera lovers don't share commercially available performances because we know that will reduce the number of DVDs sold causing labels to be hesitant to release other performances.

[Chrysothemis]

Thanks for posting this! I saw this production in 1988, and it's still one of my greatest experiences. While the size of Gwyneth's voice doesn't come across at all, it's still pretty awesome.

[bonnisolli]

my fantasy turandot cast wonderfull

[jonbaum]

Continued: The interesting thing about that night was that Angela Gheorghiu was singing Liu - she had just graduated from the academy in Bucharest and it was her Covent Garden debut, and of course nobody knew who she was. I remember saying to the friend that I went with that Angela Gheorghiu is a name we should make a note of. And look what happened!!

[jonbaum]

Absolutely wonderful.

I saw this production in Covent Garden - I think it was in about 1992. Gwyneth Jones was way beyond her prime (to say the least) by then, and she wobbled and screamed her way through the whole thing.

[mrrk]

I'll never forget that entrance Jones did. You could have heard a pin drop in the house.