The success of San Diego Opera’s season-opening opera production, Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, is a lot like the current resurgence of the American stock market. While the Dow Jones flirts with the 12,000 mark, the overall economy stagnates and unemployment has only descended to 9.4 per cent.

For the past two seasons, San Diegans have adjusted to a shorter opera season (four operas instead of five) and fewer performances of each production, but Saturday’s (Jan. 29) Turandot was as lavish and musically opulent a San Diego Opera production as I can recall in decades.

From David Hockney’s visionary set to the well-polished roar of chorus and orchestra to the endlessly inventive stage direction of Lotfi Mansouri, this Turandot unfolded as a grand and occasionally touching pageant of romance set in ancient China, a fable that Puccini hoped would become the crown jewel of his opera legacy. Ah yes, the production’s large cast of singers was more than up to the challenge of this most demanding score, although the most convincing voices were not the star-crossed lovers.

Hockney’s massive yet deceptively simple architectural design calls to mind a magical child’s storybook, with its mesmerizing primary colors (blue and red with vivd touches of green), fanciful zigzagging walkways and outsized buildings. We have seen this production before (it belongs to the San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago), but it never wears out its welcome because it whimiscally reminds us that this captivating (and mercilessly decapitating) story is not history but pure fairy tale.

Puccini took the story from a play by Carlo Gozzi, an 18^th –century Venetian writer who crafted the plot—a cruel ice-princess taunts her suitors with trick questions and summarily executes them for their incorrect answers—from a legend found in The Arabian Nights. Mansouri maintained the perfect dramatic balance among the commedia dell’arte antics of the courtiers (Ping, Pang, and Pong), the oversized, mercurial moods of the populace (the chorus), and the pathos of the strange love triangle of Turandot (the ice-princess), Calaf (her princely suitor) and Liù (the servant who sacrifices her love to save the prince). The opera’s pace never slackened nor rushed unduly, and maestro Eduardo Müller took an equally balanced yet energetic approach in the pit.

I suppose that protocol would require commenting on the title singer first, but my enthusiasm for Ermonela Jaho, the lovely Albanian spinto soprano who sang Liú, overrides the demands of that tradition. Jaho filled Civic Theatre with a warm, shimmering vocal line that communicated both her passion and tenderness. Her every phrase was irresistible, and her signature aria “Tu che de gel sei cinta” proved the evening’s most poignant moment. I found myself filled with regret that I had missed her San Diego Opera debut in 2008 singing the lead role of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda.

That the young American dramatic soprano Lise Lindstrom has the vocal prowess to send Turandot’s imperious lines locked in their dangerously high vocal tessitura over the massive chorus and orchestra is both admirable and beyond questioning. She certainly handled the transition from cruel dragon princess to ardent, submissive lover with as much grace as the book allows. But her timbre has a slightly opaque quality that does not grow on the listener.

As her suitor, tenor Carlo Ventre’s Calaf exuded the zeal of a patient swain, but I would have liked to have heard more passion in his pursuit and greater fire in his vocal color. His big moment, the commercial-friendly aria “Nessun dorma,” confidently sported the high “money” notes, especially at the climax, but it lacked a sense of urgency.

The comedic trio Ping, Pang amd Pong—baritone Jeff Mattsey, tenor Joel Sorensen, and tenor Joseph Hu—gracefully executed their vocal and physical gymnastics with seasoned poise. They rose to the challenge of their splendid nostalgia trio that opens the second act, communicating the wistful profundity Puccini wove into these simple themes and Impressionist textures. I appreciated Mattsey’s hearty, gregarious baritone as Marcello in last season’s La Boheme, and the role of Ping, the court’s Lord Chancellor, gave him greater emotional scope to both amuse us and move us.

To Timur, Calaf’s long-lost noble father, German bass Reinhard Hagen brought a measure of dignity and compassion, and his voice grew in strength and persuasion as the drama progressed. He has appeared with acclaim in several German-language operas this company has offered over the last decade, and his voice is always compelling. Tenor Joseph Frank’s Emperor Altoum, Turandot’s aged father, exhibited more quaver in his voice than may have been necessary to indicate his character’s seniority. Bass baritone Scott Sikon connoted the appropriate solemnity to his proclamations as the Mandarin.

Acting Chorus Master Charles Prestinari coaxed marvellously explicit characterizations from his robust, well-tuned San Diego Opera Chorus, whether they were snarling the bloodthirsty rants of the crowds at the palace gate or intoning their quasi-devotional “Invocation to the Moon.” They sang confidently in procession, as did the youngsters of the Children’s Chorus. Kudos also to mezzo Tiffany Carmel and soprano Anishka Lee-Skorepa as Handmaidens to Princess Turandot.

Most scholars aver that Turandot is Puccini’s most advanced and complex orchestral score, over which Müller presided with his customary authority. The orchestra has seldom sounded more resonant and focused. If the remainder of San Diego Opera’s 2011 season lives up to the attainment of this production, the company’s stock will soar, even if the market takes another nosedive.

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