Atlanta Opera’s Turandot tries, succeeds on a grand scale
Mr. Fagen conducted a new production of Turandot at the Atlanta Opera in 2007, opening the season and inaugurating the new opera house, the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. Now, ten years later, Mr. Fagen closes the 2016-17 season in Atlanta with same opera, Turandot, an incredibly colorful production, with more than 110 performers and singers on the stage. Puccini’s last opera, in which he was working on the final scene when he died, is one of the beloved operas of Mr. Fagen. In 2007 the critics said that “…the conductor Arthur Fagen could draw intensely colorful sounds from the orchestra, at once gauzy and crystal clear, like an Impressionist painting that’s recently been cleaned …” This year, the première was welcomed with this title: Atlanta Opera’s Turandot tries, succeeds on a grand scale (see press quotes).
On March 3, Naxos Records released the first recording of Bernard Rands’s 2011 opera Vincent, with Arthur Fagen leading the Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra.
Atlanta Opera, Puccini, Turandot, April 29, May 2, 5, 7, 2017
www.atlantaopera.org