November 17, 1986

OPERA: BUSONI'S 'TURANDOT'

By TIM PAGE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

At its best, Ferruccio Busoni's music transcends worldly tumult to evoke a vaporous aura of mystery and serenity. Simultaneously learned and original, it makes its appeal to the mind rather than to the passions. Its movement is stately and formal, its humor mostly ironic. In the operas, Busoni's characters function as symbols in musical allegories rather than as vital, full-blooded human beings involved in vital, full-blooded human pursuits. It seems fitting, somehow, that this questing, deeply serious creator should have chosen ''Dr. Faustus'' as his last opera - and that he should have left it incomplete.

Tonight at the Palace Theater here, the Connecticut Grand Opera and Stamford State Opera presented the American stage premiere of an earlier Busoni work, ''Turandot,'' after the same play by Carlo Gozzi that later inspired Puccini. Notwithstanding a predilection toward Orientalism, the contrasts between the two operas, both written within the same decade and on the same continent, could not be more striking. Puccini's ''Turandot'' is fiery and effusive, Busoni's cool and analytical. It is not germane to try to select a ''better'' setting of ''Turandot.'' The Puccini work, although not one of his ''greatest hits,'' long ago entered the repertory, while Busoni's opera - indeed, his entire canon of works - remains virtually unknown to the general public.

As one who loves Busoni's music -for its temperance, elevation and lack of sensory manipulation - this listener found tonight's performance deeply moving. The production, which was directed by Arvin Brown and designed by Ugo Nespolo, evoked a stylized, tasteful chinoiserie, the singers were competent or better, and Laurence Gilgore's conducting struck just the right balance between the impulsive and the contemplative, keeping the music moving yet allowing the composer to remain, in the writer Romain Rolland's lovely phrase, above the battle.

Juan Luque Carmona, who sang Calaf, has a high, sweet, lightweight tenor voice, and made his most winning impression in the opera's lyrical passages. Patricia Craig, the Turandot, has a healthy voice of substantial dimension and agility, a certain veristic temperament, and sang her best in heroic passages. Their duets, while sung well by each partner, were not evenly matched. Although one might have preferred a voice of more depth and magisterial resonance, Gregory Stapp sang the role of the Emperor Altoum with intelligence and musicality. There was skillful support from Franco Ventriglia, Trudy Ellen Craney, Darren Keith Woods, Peter Graham, Eric Allen Hanson, Deborah Lancman and the dancer Rachel Chapman.

One minor irritation - the directors misjudged the sophistication of the audience and began to lower the curtain before the last chords of the first act had died out, and Busoni's wonderfully quizzical conclusion was lost in premature applause.

All in all, however, this was an apt, loving production of a fascinating work. I do not predict a sudden public vogue for Busoni on the level of that awarded Vivaldi in the 1950's and Mahler in the 1960's. But there will always be those who find the composer's work distinctive, challenging and true. And for them, this production should prove eminently satisfying.