Last-minute substitute delivers first-rate performance

TAMPA - It has to be an opera company's worst nightmare: a leading lady coming down with a throat infection just before opening night.

Opera Tampa deftly turned it into a dream on Friday, bringing in a substitute to sing the title role in Turandot and, under conductor Anton Coppola and director Vernon Hartman, giving an enthusiastic audience an evening of spectacle, drama and assured performances.

When soprano Pamela Kucenic was unable to perform, Lori Phillips stepped into the role on very short notice, arriving just hours before the opera began. She has sung Turandot several times, most recently in November with New York City Opera, and she brought icy power to Puccini's lethal princess. The decision about which soprano will be in the role for the second performance won't be made until today.

Turandot, Puccini's last opera, is set in ancient China, though the story can be traced back to a Persian fable that inspired several earlier plays and operas. It's very much fairy tale territory, your basic fertility myth about a kingdom in the thrall of death, awaiting a hero to bring it back to life.

The curse upon China is Turandot, and she is not one of Puccini's typical hapless, victimized women, no Mimi or Cio-Cio-San. The emperor's daughter will not marry until a prince can answer her three riddles. Those who venture and fail lose their heads.

In Act I, Turandot's deathly spell is underlined visually by a wall decorated with heads on pikes and musically by Perche, tarda la luna? The chorus' eerily lovely invocation of the moon compares it to a severed head, the pale lover of the dead. This is not a happy place.

At first Calaf, exiled prince of Tartary, wants no part of it. He is overjoyed to find his long-lost father, Timur, and Timur's devoted servant girl Liu (who harbors a secret love for Calaf), but is dismayed at the cruelty of the crowd as they await the execution of the latest failed suitor.

Turandot appears and silently orders the execution carried out. But two princes lose their heads: Calaf is instantly in love and determined to win her. His ingenuity and courage will help, but it will take the selfless sacrifice of Liu to thaw Turandot's glacial heart.

Richard Brunner was a confident, persuasive Calaf, not only in boldly scoring three for three on the princess' riddles but also in the swoonily romantic aria Nessun dorma.

But the sopranos are the show here, and Phillips and Amy Johnson as Liu were both splendid. Phillips' chilling, passionate In questa reggia, Turandot's retelling of the ravishment and murder of her ancestor Princess Lo-u-Ling, was matched by Johnson's heartbreaking Tanto amore, segreto e inconfessato, Liu's ecstatic declaration of love in the face of death.

Brian Davis, Jeffrey Halili and Nathan Payas were delightful as, respectively, Ping, Pong and Pang, the palace ministers. The three are comic relief (and they get a lot of mileage out of their silk fans) but also the voices of life in Turandot's kingdom of death, whether they are uproariously trying to dissuade Calaf from answering the riddles or singing nostalgically of their faraway homes in the gorgeous Ho una casa nell'Honan.

As Timur, George Cordes was touching in his mourning for Liu. David Ronis pulled off a tricky feat as the emperor, Altoum, singing clearly yet in the voice of a weary old man. When the chorus sang perkily of its wish that the emperor live 10,000 years, the feeble Altoum cut them a look that said he hoped not.

There is plenty for the chorus to do in Turandot, and Opera Tampa's chorus was more than up to the task. The children's chorus, charming in white satin robes and caps, sang sweetly.

The sets by Peter Dean Beck evoked the Chinese imperial city effectively with tile roofs and huge carved beams and lanterns. Malabar Limited provided colorful, lush costumes, notably Turandot's regal, silvery moon-goddess gowns.

- Colette Bancroft can be contacted at 727 893-8435 or bancroft@sptimes.com

The Opera Tampa production of Puccini's Turandot repeats at 2 p.m. today, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. $24.50-$75. 813 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045; www.tbpac.org

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