Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot by Carlo Gozzi. Turandot was unfinished at the time of Puccini's death and was later completed by Franco Alfano. The first performance was held at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 25 April 1926 and conducted by Arturo Toscanini. This performance included only Puccini's music and not Alfano's additions. The first performance of the opera as completed by Alfano was conducted by Ettore Panizza.
Origin of the name
Turandot is a Persian word and name meaning "the daughter of Turan", Turan being a region of Central Asia which used to be part of the Persian Empire. In Persian, the fairy tale is known as Turandokht , with "dokht" being a contraction for dokhtar (meaning daughter ), and both the "kh" and "t" are clearly pronounced. However, according to Puccini scholar Patrick Vincent Casali, the final "t" should not be sounded in the pronunciation of the opera's name or when referring to the title character, as Puccini never pronounced it (according to Rosa Raisa, the first singer to play the title role) and, as Casali notes, the musical setting of many of Calaf's intonations of the name makes sounding the final "t" all but impossible. However Simonetta Puccini, Puccini's granddaughter and keeper of the Villa Puccini and Mausoleum, clearly states that the final "t" must be pronounced.
Composition history
The story of Turandot was taken from the Persian collection of stories called The Book of One Thousand and One Days or Hezar o-yek shab (1722 French translation Les Mille et un jours by François Petis de la Croix — not to be confused with its sister work The Book of One Thousand and One Nights ), where the character of "Turandokht" as a cold Chinese princess was found. The story of Turandokht is one of the best known from de la Croix's translation.The plot respects the classical unities of time, space and action.
Puccini first began working on Turandot in March 1920 after meeting with librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. He began composition in January 1921. By March 1924 he had completed the opera up to the final duet. However, he was unsatisfied with the text of the final duet, and did not continue until October 8, when he chose Adami's fourth version of the duet text. On October 10 he was diagnosed with throat cancer and on November 24 went to Brussels, Belgium for treatment. There he underwent a new and experimental radiation therapy treatment. Puccini and his wife never knew how serious the cancer was, as the news was only revealed to his son. He died of complications on November 29, 1924.
He left behind 36 pages of sketches on 23 sheets for the end of Turandot , together with instructions that Riccardo Zandonai should finish the opera. Puccini's son Tonio objected, and eventually Franco Alfano was chosen to flesh out the sketches after Vincenzo Tommasini (who had completed Boito's Nerone after the composer’s death) and Pietro Mascagni were rejected. Ricordi decided on Alfano because his opera La leggenda di Sakùntala resembled Turandot in its setting and heavy orchestration. Alfano provided a first version of the ending with a few passages of his own, and even a few sentences added to the libretto which was not considered complete even by Puccini himself. After the severe criticisms by editor Ricordi and the conductor Arturo Toscanini, he was forced to write a second, strictly censored version that followed Puccini's sketches more closely, to the point where he did not set some of Adami's text to music because Puccini had not indicated how he wanted it to sound. Ricordi's real concern was not the quality of Alfano's work, but that he wanted the end of Turandot to sound as if it had been written by Puccini, and Alfano's editing had to be seamless. Of this version, about three minutes were cut for performance by Toscanini and it is this shortened version that is usually performed.
The premiere of Turandot was at La Scala, Milan, on Sunday April 25, 1926, one year and five months after Puccini's death. It was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. In the middle of Act III, two measures after the words " Liù, poesia! ", the orchestra rested. Toscanini stopped and laid down his baton. He turned to the audience and announced: " Qui finisce l'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto " ("Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died"). The curtain was lowered slowly. Toscanini apparently never conducted the opera again. The second and subsequent performances at the 1926 La Scala season were conducted by Ettore Panizza and they included Alfano's ending. (As discussed in Ashbrook and Powers , the music for Liù's death was not in fact Puccini's final composition, but had been orchestrated some nine months earlier).
Performance history
Turandot quickly spread to other venues: Rome (Teatro Costanzi, April 29, four days after the Milan premiere), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón, June 23), Dresden (September 6, in German), Venice (La Fenice, September 9), Vienna (October 14), Berlin (November 8), New York (Metropolitan Opera, November 16), Brussels (La Monnaie, 17 December, in French), Naples (Teatro San Carlo, January 17, 1927), Parma (February 12), Turin (March 17), London (Covent Garden, June 7), San Francisco (September 19), Bologna (October 1927), Paris (March 29, 1928), Moscow (Bolshoi Theatre, 1931).
Turandot is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire and it appears as number twelve on Opera America's list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America.
For many years, the Government of the People's Republic of China forbade performance of Turandot because they said it portrayed China and the Chinese unfavourably. In the late 1990s they relented, and in September 1998 the opera was performed for eight nights at the Forbidden City, complete with opulent sets and soldiers from the People's Liberation Army as extras. It was an international collaboration, with director Zhang Yimou as choreographer and Zubin Mehta as conductor. The singing roles saw Giovanna Casolla as Princess Turandot, Sergej Larin as Calàf, and Barbara Frittoli as Liù.
As with Madama Butterfly , Puccini strove for a semblance of Asian authenticity (at least to Western ears) by using music from the region in question. Up to eight of the themes used in Turandot appear to be based on traditional Chinese music, and the melody of a Chinese song named "Mò Li Hūa (茉莉花)", or "Jasmine", is included as a motif for the princess.
Alfano's original ending
The debate over which version of the ending is better is still open, but the consensus generally tends towards Alfano's first score. Scrutiny of the sketches, which Ricordi later allowed scholars to analyze (and sometimes publish), showed how Alfano actually didn't even try to use most of the short sketches on the sheets, with the exception of those with an obvious placement and one short theme he freely transformed, and used for the sake of stylistic continuity. From 1976 to 1988 the American composer Janet Maguire, convinced that the whole ending is coded in the sketches left by Puccini, composed a new ending, but this has never been performed. In 2001 Luciano Berio made a new sanctioned completion, using Puccini's sketches but also expanding the musical language, but this has received a mixed reception.
The opera with Alfano's original ending has been recorded more than once. The first definitely known live performance of the opera with Alfano's original ending was not until November 3, 1982, at the Barbican, London. It may have been staged in Germany in the early years, since Ricordi had commissioned a German translation of the text and a number of scores were printed in Germany with the full final scene included. This includes the aria "Del primo pianto", which is not usually performed. Recordings of this aria with Anna Roselle and Lotte Lehmann exist, which suggests they may have sung the original ending on stage, but no other evidence is available.
Roles
Synopsis
Act 1
In front of the imperial palace
A Mandarin announces the law of the land ( Popolo di Pekino! - "Any man who desires to wed Turandot must first answer her three riddles. If he fails, he will be beheaded"). The Prince of Persia has failed and is to be beheaded at moonrise. As the crowd surges towards the gates of the palace, the imperial guards brutally repulse them, a blind old man is pushed to the ground. His slave-girl, Liù, cries for help. A young man hears her cry and recognizes the old man as his long-lost father, Timur, the deposed king of Tartary. The young Prince of Tartary is overjoyed at seeing his father alive but urges him not to speak his name because he fears the Chinese rulers who have conquered Tartary. Timur tells his son that, of all his servants, only Liù has remained faithful to him. When the Prince asks her why, she tells him that once, long ago in the palace,
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