Turandot Opera Program Notes, Sheet Music and Recordings

Program Notes & Analysis

A "Turandot" Born of War and Fear

When Giacomo Puccini began work on Turandot in 1920, he was a man obsessed with his own mortality and the fear that he was becoming irrelevant. The world had been shattered by World War I. The intimate, sentimental verismo that had made him a superstar with La bohème and Madama Butterfly suddenly seemed small and old-fashioned. The new, "modern" music was the dissonant, psychological expressionism of Richard Strauss’s Salome and the primal, "barbaric" rhythms of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Puccini, in his 60s, was determined to prove that he, too, could write a "modern" opera, but on his own terms. He wanted a subject that was "not realistic," something mythical, grand, and "unreal." He found it in Carlo Gozzi’s 1762 commedia dell'arte play Turandot, a fairy tale that allowed him to create a new, epic sound world that was both barbaric and sublime.

The "Turandot" Sound: A New Exoticism

Puccini was a master of "exoticism," but his "Japan" (Madama Butterfly) and his "American West" (La fanciulla del West) were essentially Italian operas in costume. Turandot was different. He made a serious study of authentic Chinese music, using at least three genuine Chinese folk melodies as key themes in his opera. The most famous, "Mo Li Hua" (Jasmine Flower), is the melody used for the grand chorus "Perché tarda la luna?" (Why does the moon delay?), creating a sound that was genuinely, chillingly "foreign" to 1920s Italian ears. The orchestra is a massive, percussive machine, filled with gongs, tam-tams, glockenspiels, and tuned bells. The harmony is his most advanced, built on pentatonic (five-note) scales and harsh, brilliant dissonances. This is not the gentle, weeping sound of Bohème; this is the sound of ritual, of a crowd crying for blood, of ice, and of an ancient, merciless legend.

The Three Masks: Ping, Pang, and Pong

Puccini's greatest structural innovation was his transformation of the commedia dell'arte characters from Gozzi's play. The three ministers, Ping, Pang, and Pong, are the opera’s "conscience." They are the bridge between the audience and the bizarre, epic fairy tale. They are, on the surface, comic-grotesque figures, but their music is some of the most sophisticated and nostalgic in the opera. At the beginning of Act II, they sing a long, complex trio, lamenting their lives. They are not just "clowns"; they are bureaucrats, sick of the endless bloodshed, who dream of returning to their peaceful country homes. They provide the opera's verismo heart, the small, human voices of reason lost inside a grand, inhuman spectacle.

The Two Princesses: Ice and Fire

The opera is a brilliant psychological study of two opposing female archetypes, two "halves" of the traditional Puccini heroine. The title character, Turandot, is the "Ice Princess." She is a soprano role of inhuman difficulty, requiring a voice that can ride over the massive orchestra with the sharp, cold, and brilliant power of a trumpet. She is a figure of pure, pathological terror. In her great aria, "In questa reggia" (In this palace), she explains why she is so cruel: she is avenging a long-dead female ancestor who was "violated" by a conquering male. Her cruelty is a defense mechanism; her music is dissonant, commanding, and, until the very end, utterly devoid of warmth. Her opposite is the slave girl, Liù. Liù is the "last" of Puccini's great "little" heroines, a spiritual sister to Mimì and Butterfly. She is a figure of pure, self-sacrificing love, and her music is composed of the melting, lyrical, and heartbreaking melodies that made Puccini famous. Her two arias, "Signore, ascolta!" (My lord, listen!) and "Tu che di gel sei cinta" (You who are girded with ice), are the opera’s true moments of verismo pathos.

The Hero: "Nessun dorma"

The hero, Calàf, is one of the most debated characters in opera. He is not a simple romantic. He is a man driven by an obsessive, suicidal desire. He first sees Turandot as she condemns a prince to death, and he is instantly, pathologically enchanted by her beauty. He ignores the pleas of his father, Timur, and the slave girl, Liù (who is secretly in love with him), and strikes the fatal gong, effectively signing his own death warrant. His victory in the riddle scene is not a "wooing" but a brutal, intellectual "battle." And in Act III, he sings "Nessun dorma" (None shall sleep), one of the most triumphant, heroic, and beloved arias ever written. But it is also an aria of profound cruelty. He sings of his assured victory while, just offstage, the entire city is being tortured at his command to discover his name. He is a new, 20th-century hero: arrogant, obsessive, and victorious.

The Unfinished Ending

Puccini’s crisis came after he had composed the entire opera up to the death of Liù. Liù, tortured by Turandot’s guards, refuses to reveal Calàf’s name. She sings her final, devastating aria to Turandot, predicting that the ice princess, too, will one day love. Then, she snatches a dagger from a soldier and kills herself. Her funeral procession is one of the most profound and moving moments Puccini ever wrote. And it is here that he stopped. He was stumped. How, musically and dramatically, do you "thaw" the ice princess? How do you write a convincing, ecstatic love duet just minutes after the girl who truly loved the hero has died? He struggled with the final duet for months, but his throat cancer was advancing. He died in 1924, leaving the final pages as sketches.

The Alfano "Solution"

The conductor Arturo Toscanini and Puccini’s publisher commissioned the composer Franco Alfano to complete the opera using Puccini’s sketches. It is Alfano's ending that is almost universally performed today. It is a loud, fast, and heroic "Hollywood" ending, in which Calàf kisses Turandot, her ice melts, and she declares her love to the people as the orchestra blazes in a triumphant C-major. While effective, it is often criticized as being abrupt and psychologically unconvincing. In 2001, the composer Luciano Berio was commissioned to write an alternate, more modern and ambiguous ending, one that leaves the "love" in a more complex, unresolved, and thoughtful state. But it is the Alfano version, with its sheer, optimistic, orchestral power, that has sealed Turandot's place in the repertoire. It is Puccini's final, glorious, and flawed monument to the annihilating power of love.

The Story of the Opera

Act I: The Riddle and the Gong

In Peking, in legendary times. A Mandarin reads a decree to a massive, bloodthirsty crowd: any prince seeking to marry the "ice princess," Turandot, must first answer three riddles. If he fails, he will be beheaded. The latest suitor, the Prince of Persia, has failed. As the crowd surges, a blind, old, exiled king, Timur, is knocked to the ground. His faithful slave girl, Liù, cries for help. A young man rushes from the crowd to help them—it is Calàf, the "Unknown Prince," who is Timur's son. They are overjoyed at their reunion, but must keep their identities secret. Liù confesses she has remained loyal to Timur because Calàf once, long ago, smiled at her. The moon rises, and the crowd grows quiet, awaiting the execution. The Prince of Persia is led by. The crowd, moved by his youth, cries for mercy. Turandot appears on the palace balcony and, with a silent, cold gesture, confirms the execution. Calàf, struck by her beauty, is instantly mesmerized. He is determined to strike the fatal gong and try the riddles himself. Timur and Liù beg him to stop ("Signore, ascolta!"). The three ministers, Ping, Pang, and Pong, also try to reason with him, painting a grotesque picture of the "royal graveyard." Calàf, in a frenzy, ignores them all, shouting Turandot's name as he strikes the gong three times.

Act II: The Riddles

Ping, Pang, and Pong lament their lives, disgusted by the endless stream of executions and longing for their peaceful country homes. The scene changes to the palace square. The old Emperor Altoum, seated on a high throne, begs Calàf to withdraw his challenge. Calàf refuses. The Mandarin reads the rules. Turandot enters and sings her great aria, "In questa reggia," explaining that she is avenging her ancestor, Princess Lo-u-Ling, who was violated and murdered by a conquering prince. She then poses the three riddles.

1. "What is born each night and dies each dawn?" Calàf correctly answers: "Hope."

2. "What flickers red and warm like a flame, but is not fire?" Calàf correctly answers: "Blood."

3. "What is like ice, but burns? And in your conquest, you are still its slave?" Turandot taunts him. He hesitates, then shouts the answer: "Turandot!" The crowd explodes in joy. Turandot, horrified, begs her father not to give her to "the foreigner." Calàf, seeing her distress, offers her a riddle of his own: "You do not know my name. Discover my name before dawn, and at dawn, I will die."

Act III: "Nessun dorma"

That night in the palace gardens. Heralds proclaim Turandot's decree: "Nessun dorma" (None shall sleep). On pain of death, no one in Peking shall sleep until the stranger's name is discovered. Calàf, alone, sings his triumphant aria, confident that he alone will possess the secret, and at dawn, he will win. Ping, Pang, and Pong arrive, offering Calàf women, wealth, and power if he will just leave the city. He refuses. Soldiers then drag in Timur and Liù, who were seen speaking to Calàf. Turandot arrives. She orders Timur to be tortured. Liù, to save the old man, cries out that she alone knows the Prince's name. She is brought before Turandot and tortured. Turandot, intrigued, asks Liù what gives her such strength. Liù replies with the aria, "Principessa, l'amore!" (Princess, it is love!). When the torture intensifies, Liù sings her final farewell to Calàf ("Tu che di gel sei cinta"), predicting that Turandot, too, will love him, before snatching a dagger from a guard and killing herself. The crowd, moved, carries her body away in a funeral procession. (It is at this point that Puccini’s original score ends.)

(The Alfano Ending) Calàf and Turandot are left alone. He reproaches her for her cruelty, then, in a sudden move, grabs her and kisses her passionately. The kiss shatters Turandot's icy defenses. She weeps, confessing her fear and her new, strange feelings. Calàf, his victory now complete, willingly tells her his secret: "My name is Calàf, son of Timur." Dawn breaks. In front of the entire court, Turandot announces, "I know his name! His name is... Love!" The opera ends in a massive, ecstatic chorus as Calàf and Turandot embrace.