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Lee Hartman: You’ve been in Kansas City before and this is your fifth production with the Lyric. How do you feel about Turandot being the first production that will take place in the new Kauffman Center? 

Garnett Bruce: I was honored to be asked, and I hope my comfortable working relationship with the staff, crew, and chorus here allow us all to face the unknown together. Everything looks great on paper, but until you actually get into the space you never quite know how you’re going to react to certain situations. I think [there’s] safety in numbers with people you know. We’ve developed some trust over the years in terms of design and production and also performance. I trust them to sing like they sing and do what they’re going to do. And they trust my eye to a certain degree. So I think it’s a marvelous way to approach a new building.

LH: Have you opened a new building before?

GB: I have! I was in the new theatre in Denver—the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, as part of the opening gala. It was…not as finished as it should have been at the opening, so we were fighting other things. I also was part of the opening season in Detroit with their remodeled opera house, and again there was unsealed concrete and water pipes. You can’t count on anything in a new building, because it hasn’t been through its acid test. For instance, we haven’t tried to turn the lights out during the show yet.

LH: So the Kauffman Center is further along than these other buildings?

GB: Yes. I walked through it six weeks ago, and I was really impressed both with the level of finish and the level of double-checking.

LH: As someone who has directed all over the world, do you think this new center will launch Kansas City into an international sphere?

GB: Kansas City now definitely has a venue that can do that and [the Lyric] definitely has the leadership with Evan [Luskin] and Ward [Holmquist] to take the next step. Ward has set that goal. I mean Nixon in China is on the list with a Wagner bicentennial next year, so being able to do the more ambitious works is part of what we are able to do and do them in the Kansas City way. Hopefully, audiences will show up. You’ve got an eye-catching building and I think with the design really says, “I need to take advantage of what arts can offer,” not just as entertainment value, but in a cultural sense.

LH: The buzz surrounding Turandot is incredible, especially since this is one of the first times Kansas City will get to experience Grand Opera.

GB: Well you don’t put Turandot on the books unless you can pull out all the stops. Having the chance to do a new production and put the largest forces on stage that they’ve ever done—sure that’s an ordinary event in San Francisco or Chicago, but it’s very special in Kansas City. I certainly feel it’s about time. With a city with a great baseball stadium, great football stadium, and great tradition of public support [for] civic initiatives, this is another team they can get behind.

LH: Although this is a new production of Turandot, it isn’t your first time directing the show. What do you have planned that’s new for this production?

GB: Every time I approach the piece, I ask questions of it. I think what I’m able to bring this time is knowing what the piece really requires. For instance, the chorus has to be here, and how to time certain entrances and exits. The way we’ve designed the production is so that we can enhance the storytelling with three-dimensional visuals. In the third act for example, when Liù has killed herself—her funeral quartet is a famous scene and the last that Puccini finished before he died—usually she’s lifted and carried off downstage left. Here, we’ve built a ramp and road to visually watch that procession disappear into the distance. We’ve never been able to have distance in Kansas City before, and honestly I don’t know of another Turandot production that goes to that level. You’re either hiding the palace behind another drop or the designers didn’t find that moment very important. I always found that to be a very touching moment for the chorus and the ensemble, and so I want a visual pathway to match that. So R. Keith Brumley has designed this gorgeous, feminine gesture—a gentle curve in the middle of this harsh, walled city.

LH: Is it safe to say Liù is the heart of the opera?

GB: She is the one who speaks to us about love and it’s her prime motivator. It’s something that the princess lacks, the understanding of the concept of love. Liù is very simply able to explain her beliefs.

LH: With this send-off, it sounds as though you are trying to give Liù justice to her character.

GB: Well, I certainly hope so, and also to Puccini. I can’t hear that music without thinking that, according to the legend, in the very first performance this is where Toscanini stopped the performance and said, “This is where maestro Puccini died,” and didn’t play the end of the opera at the premiere.

LH: So whose completion are you using since you’ve used both [the original Franco Alfano ending and the Luciano Berio of 2001] in previous productions?

GB: We talked about it. The Berio finale ends on a pianissimo question mark. For the opening of a new building, I think we want trumpets blazing. I think we want to look toward an optimistic future. Mr. Berio has a nebulous approach to it—you can make that intriguing—but it seemed to us that the “Nessun dorma” theme coming back, the celebration of love and renewal, was the overriding idea. Puccini is writing at the end of the First World War and he’s looking at a world that’s become very disjointed. The artists around him are debating things like whether there is a God and operas like Wozzeck [are being composed]. You have to go back to Romanticism, and at the heart of that is love. A big romantic finale seems like the appropriate gesture to finish this Puccini opera and especially the grand occasion of opening a new house.

LH: Are there any difficulties aside from scope in mounting this opera?

GB: The challenge of the piece is to make Turandot sympathetic. She is someone who is feared and everyone talks about it for the first half of the opera, about how terrifying, scary, and brutal she is. She has to show up in a public scene with her public face on. When she does, she has nothing generous or kind to say at all. The struggle is to find a way to make her someone who is engaging and worthy of Calaf being in love with, or else he looks like a big fool. I’m really pleased that we have Lise Lindstrom, who is an artist I’ve worked with three times in the role, and she is now one of the leading exponents in the world. She brings such a vast array of experiences to the role. Even today, every time it’s different, how she responds to people around her with the given clues. It creates something very honest. That’s something we’re working on in rehearsal, to maybe transform how the story is told.

LH: That’s great that Kansas City will get to experience the premiere American Turandot in Lindstrom but this will also be the Kansas City stage debut of Sam Ramey, a native Kansan.

GB: Well, [his] career just took off! There wasn’t time for him to come back he was so busy elsewhere. We were thrilled that he agreed to come. He brings with him a world of experience that is something else that Kansas City should be proud of. He understands the history of the company and the genesis of the building and wants to be part of celebrating something here on the banks of the Missouri River. It’s really a testament to the strength of arts and artists to create something to speak to our souls. Regional pride. What I’ve always found when I come to work here, it’s far enough from the other capitals that the people want good art, good ballet. They have to create it themselves. It’s not necessarily going to come to them on its own. Nurture. Commitment. Vision. And it happens. Time and time again in Kansas City, it happens. People are looking out for each other and looking to make this an even better place by bringing their experience to bear in Kansas City, making it a wonderful place to work, live, and to grow.

[…]

I could not be happier than I am right now working with Elizabeth Caballero, Arnold Rawls, Lise Lindstrom, Sam Ramey, Ward Holmquist. This is a great team of singing actors. I think we are all delighted to be collaborating on something in a place that is so supportive of what we do.

LH: I recently wrote in my fall preview that Turandot will be the artistic production of the season.

GB: [Laughing] Well, it won’t be for lack of trying! We’re also rehearsing in the new production space and if you need inspiration, you walk over to the costume shop and you see racks upon racks of new costumes, or you walk into the scene shop and you see fifteen-foot dragons being carved. We are a part of something monumental here.

The Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s production of Turandot runs October 1–9 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Muriel Kauffman Theatre. For tickets call 877-673-7252 or visit http://www.kcopera.org 

By Lee Hartman

Editor-in-Chief; Traditional and New Classical Contributor

Lee Hartman holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (D.M.A., M.M.) and the University of Delaware (B.M.). At the University of Delaware, he received a Dean's Scholar position enabling him to pursue an individually designed academic program combining music education and composition. At the University of Missouri-Kansas City he served for three years as the Assistant Director to Musica Nova, the conservatory's new music ensemble, while teaching a variety of composition classes.

In 2007 he was invited to both the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík, Iceland and the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China to give lectures and master classes in composition. In the summer of 2009, Hartman served as an orchestra manager for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Aspen Opera Theater Center for various performances. He serves on the National Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc. as Submissions Coordinator. His primary composition instructors include James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, John Beall, and Jennifer Margaret Barker. He currently teaches music theory at the University of Central Missouri and general music classes at Park University having previously taught at UD (2007–08) and UMKC (2006–07).

His compositions can be found at http://www.leehartmanmusic.com

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