Turandot - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Turandot
Dramma lirico in three acts
Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni,
based on the play by Carlo Gozzi
First performance on April 25, 1926 in Milan
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on September 13, 2008
recommended from 15 years
2 hours 30 minutes / One break
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Introduction: 45 minutes before the start of the performance in the foyer on the right
Tormenting doubts and paralyzing depressions accompanied the creation process of Giacomo Puccini's last opera TURANDOT. Out of the initially vague fear of not being able to complete his opera, Puccini urged himself and his librettist duo Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni to hurry. It was to be a new beginning, born out of a compositional crisis into which musical developments and even upheavals of the present had thrown him, a liberation, a departure for new shores.
Even the material should signal a departure from the issues of the past. Puccini was looking for the "pure myth", the essence of what he had previously told in psychologically realistic detail in the theater. He had in mind a fairytale-like, fantastic drama and he had found it when Simoni drew his attention to the Turandot subject matter in the spring of 1920, in the form of Carlo Gozzi's fairytale comedy (1762). Driven by nervous impatience, he accompanied – meticulously as always – the conception and execution of the libretto.
The opera focuses on the cruel Princess Turandot, who terrorizes her people. Their dictatorship, resembling a curse, under which an entire country is groaning, can only be banished by marrying Turandot. Potential marriage candidates have to endure a difficult test. Anyone who cannot solve the three riddles of the princess will be beheaded. Although countless princes have met their deaths, there are still new candidates who let themselves be hypnotized by Turandot's beauty and willingly answer her questions. Calaf, the son of an expelled ruler from a foreign country, breaks with all expectations of this scheme. He answers the questions and increases his triumph by reversing the balance of power, prolonging the cruel puzzle game, and asking the princess a question in return. If she is able to answer them, he promises to release her from her vows of marriage. By introducing a new character – the slave Liù – into the originally Persian fairy tale, Puccini, a female figure reminiscent of the heroines of his earlier operas, illuminates Turandot's bestial brutality even more clearly. Like various Puccini heroines before her, Liù breaks in the face of the cruel reality that disregards her feelings. When she realizes that she cannot win over Calaf, whom she loves, she sacrifices her life for her lover. According to Puccini's ideas, in the final scene "love should explode" and "the humanity of love should outshine all cruelty". The ice-cold princess would experience a complete change in her nature.
When Puccini was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx in mid-1924, the opera – with the exception of that final scene – was practically complete. Whether it was the serious illness or Puccini's inability to credibly free himself from the dramaturgical impasse into which the wonderful, fairytale-like but psychologically hardly comprehensible transformation of Turandot had led him, ultimately remains speculation. Puccini died as a result of an operation on November 29, 1924 in a Brussels hospital, leaving behind the unfinished work that his colleague Franco Alfano - based on the master's sketches - completed. Toscanini premiered TURANDOT on April 25, 1925 at La Scala in Milan.
Although Puccini was unable to make an unconditional fresh start with his TURANDOT, the influence of his experience with the works of contemporary composers is noticeable. Although this did not lead to a radical change in his musical language, his means of expression have become more unusual and subtle, but also harder and more dramatic. With the role of Turandot he created a completely new type of highly dramatic Italian soprano reminiscent of Wagner's heavy heroines.
Subject to change.
Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni,
based on the play by Carlo Gozzi
First performance on April 25, 1926 in Milan
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on September 13, 2008
recommended from 15 years
2 hours 30 minutes / One break
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Introduction: 45 minutes before the start of the performance in the foyer on the right
Tormenting doubts and paralyzing depressions accompanied the creation process of Giacomo Puccini's last opera TURANDOT. Out of the initially vague fear of not being able to complete his opera, Puccini urged himself and his librettist duo Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni to hurry. It was to be a new beginning, born out of a compositional crisis into which musical developments and even upheavals of the present had thrown him, a liberation, a departure for new shores.
Even the material should signal a departure from the issues of the past. Puccini was looking for the "pure myth", the essence of what he had previously told in psychologically realistic detail in the theater. He had in mind a fairytale-like, fantastic drama and he had found it when Simoni drew his attention to the Turandot subject matter in the spring of 1920, in the form of Carlo Gozzi's fairytale comedy (1762). Driven by nervous impatience, he accompanied – meticulously as always – the conception and execution of the libretto.
The opera focuses on the cruel Princess Turandot, who terrorizes her people. Their dictatorship, resembling a curse, under which an entire country is groaning, can only be banished by marrying Turandot. Potential marriage candidates have to endure a difficult test. Anyone who cannot solve the three riddles of the princess will be beheaded. Although countless princes have met their deaths, there are still new candidates who let themselves be hypnotized by Turandot's beauty and willingly answer her questions. Calaf, the son of an expelled ruler from a foreign country, breaks with all expectations of this scheme. He answers the questions and increases his triumph by reversing the balance of power, prolonging the cruel puzzle game, and asking the princess a question in return. If she is able to answer them, he promises to release her from her vows of marriage. By introducing a new character – the slave Liù – into the originally Persian fairy tale, Puccini, a female figure reminiscent of the heroines of his earlier operas, illuminates Turandot's bestial brutality even more clearly. Like various Puccini heroines before her, Liù breaks in the face of the cruel reality that disregards her feelings. When she realizes that she cannot win over Calaf, whom she loves, she sacrifices her life for her lover. According to Puccini's ideas, in the final scene "love should explode" and "the humanity of love should outshine all cruelty". The ice-cold princess would experience a complete change in her nature.
When Puccini was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx in mid-1924, the opera – with the exception of that final scene – was practically complete. Whether it was the serious illness or Puccini's inability to credibly free himself from the dramaturgical impasse into which the wonderful, fairytale-like but psychologically hardly comprehensible transformation of Turandot had led him, ultimately remains speculation. Puccini died as a result of an operation on November 29, 1924 in a Brussels hospital, leaving behind the unfinished work that his colleague Franco Alfano - based on the master's sketches - completed. Toscanini premiered TURANDOT on April 25, 1925 at La Scala in Milan.
Although Puccini was unable to make an unconditional fresh start with his TURANDOT, the influence of his experience with the works of contemporary composers is noticeable. Although this did not lead to a radical change in his musical language, his means of expression have become more unusual and subtle, but also harder and more dramatic. With the role of Turandot he created a completely new type of highly dramatic Italian soprano reminiscent of Wagner's heavy heroines.
Subject to change.
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