The main visual frisson of the 2002 Salzburg Festival was undoubtedly David Pountney’s extravagant (in every sense) staging of Puccini’s last, unfinished work, presented with Berio’s controversial completion. Johan Engels’s three-tiered set fills every inch of the stage at the Grosses Festspielhaus with side-wings carrying it to the extremities. The theme of its metallic decor is to propose a brutalised society: engines of death – cogs suggesting torture, guillotines and body-parts – are prominent throughout, down to Liù’s death scene. Sometimes the effect is risible, as when we see hand-operated torsos of beautiful girls floating across the stage; but, by and large, the sense of a harsh world where human values are of little consequence is admirably and arrestingly conveyed.

The staging does, however, tend to dwarf the principals. Cristina Gallardo-Domâs is such a convincing singer-actress that she alone overcomes this drawback, conveying with her body and her peculiarly affecting voice, all the sorrow, desperation and eventual agony of her situation: a great performance, given the trying milieu.

Turandot and Calaf, however, are oddly cast. Gabriele Schnaut’s icy princess won’t do: she is simply too mature for the part, makes ugly though powerful noises, and is audibly strained and uncomfortable once she descends from her stilts (!) for ‘In questa reggia’. Johan Botha certainly has the notes for Calaf’s role though not the Italianate ping they need, and displays some sensitivity in his solos, but his acting is static and ineffective, with none of the requisite charisma so essential in portraying the Unknown Prince. Burchuladze evinces sympathy for poor, blind Timur but is left high and dry by the production, There is a lively, well-directed trio of Ministers and Robert Tear makes much of little as Altoum.

Gergiev conducts a big-boned account of the score with a suitably saturated sound in broad but never dragging tempi. I find Berio’s completion curiously lacklustre, with little feeling for Puccinian richness of texture, but then it is not sung with sufficient conviction to make it sound authentic. Brian Large’s video direction is as accomplished as one would expect, but the ‘sound picture’ is curiously short of range and focus.