Puccini: Turandot

Introduction

Turandot (UK /ˈtjʊər.ən.dɒt/ or US /ˈtʊr.ən.dɑːt/; Italian pronunciation: [turanˈdɔt]; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, completed by Franco Alfano, and 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 1801 adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot by Carlo Gozzi. The original story is based on Turan-Dokht (daughter of Turan) from the epic Haft Peykar (The Seven Beauties), work of 12th-century Persian poet Nizami. The opera's story is set in China and involves Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. To obtain permission to marry her, a suitor has to solve three riddles; any wrong answer results in death. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot still refuses to marry him. He offers her a way out: if she is able to learn his name before dawn the next day, then at daybreak he will die.

The opera was unfinished at the time of Puccini's death in 1924, and was completed by Franco Alfano in 1926. 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 the following night, 26 April, although it is disputed whether this was conducted by Toscanini again or by Ettore Panizza.

Origin and pronunciation of the name

Turandot is a Persian word and name that means "the daughter of Turan", Turan being a region of Central Asia, formerly part of the Persian Empire. In Persian, the fairy tale is known as Turandokht, with dokht being a contraction of dokhtar (daughter); the kh and t are both pronounced.

According to Puccini scholar Patrick Vincent Casali, the final t is silent in the opera's and title character's name, making it sound [turanˈdo]. Soprano Rosa Raisa, who created the title role, says that Puccini never pronounced the final t. Eva Turner, a prominent Turandot, did not pronounce the final t, as television interviews with her attest. Casali also maintains that the musical setting of many of Calaf's utterances of the name makes sounding the final t all but impossible.^[2] On the other hand, Simonetta Puccini, the composer's granddaughter and keeper of the Villa Puccini and Mausoleum, has said that the final t must be pronounced. Italo Marchini questioned her about this in 2002. Ms. Puccini said that in Italian the name would be Turandotta. In the Venetian dialect of Carlo Gozzi the final syllables are usually dropped and words end in a consonant, ergo Turandott, as the name has been made Venetian.

In 1710, while writing the first biography of Genghis Khan, the French scholar François Pétis de La Croix published a book of tales and fables combining various Asian literary themes. One of his longest and best stories derived from the history of Mongol princess Khutulun. In his adaptation, however, she bore the title Turandot, meaning "Turkish Daughter," the daughter of Kaidu. Instead of challenging her suitors in wrestling, Pétis de La Croix had her confront them with three riddles. In his more dramatic version, instead of wagering mere horses, the suitor had to forfeit his life if he failed to answer correctly.

Fifty years later, the popular Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi made her story into a drama of a "tigerish woman" of "unrelenting pride." In a combined effort by two of the greatest literary talents of the era, Friedrich von Schiller translated the play into German as Turandot, Prinzessin von China, and Goethe directed it on the stage in Weimar in 1802.

Composition history

The story of Turandot was taken from a Persian collection of stories called The Book of One Thousand and One Days (1722 French translation Les Mille et un jours by François Pétis 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 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. In his impatience he began composition in January 1921 before Adami and Simoni had even produced the text for the librettto.^{[citation needed]} Baron Fassini Camossi, the former Italian diplomat to China, gave Puccini as a gift a music box which played a number of Chinese melodies. Puccini used three of these in the opera, including the national anthem (heard during the appearance of the Emperor Altoum) and, most memorably, the folk melody "Mo Li Hua" (Jasmine Flower) which is first heard sung by the children's chorus after the invocation to the moon in act 1, and becomes a sort of 'leitmotif' for the princess throughout the opera. Puccini commissioned a set of 13 gongs constructed by the Tronci family specifically for Turandot. Decades later, percussionist Howard Van Hyning of the New York City Opera had been searching for a proper set of gongs and obtained the original set from the Stivanello Costume Company, which had acquired the gongs as the result of winning a bet. In 1987 he bought the gongs for his collection, paying thousands of dollars for the set, which he described as having "colorful, intense, centered and perfumed" sound qualities.

By March 1924 Puccini 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 8 October, when he chose Adami's fourth version of the duet text. On 10 October he was diagnosed with throat cancer and on 24 November 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 revealed only to his son. Puccini, however, seems to have had some inkling of the possible seriousness of his condition since, before leaving for Brussels, he visited Toscanini and begged him, "Don't let my Turandot die".^[7] He died of a heart attack on 29 November 1924, when it had seemed that the radium treatment was succeeding. His step-daughter Fosca was in fact joyfully writing a letter to an English friend of the family, Sibyl Seligman, telling her that the cancer was shrinking when she was called to her father's bedside because of the heart attack.

Completion of the score after Puccini's death

When Puccini died, the first two of the three acts were fully composed, including orchestration. Puccini had composed and fully orchestrated act 3 up until Liù's death and funeral cortege. In the sense of finished music, this was the last music composed by Puccini. He left behind 36 pages of sketches on 23 sheets for the end of Turandot. Some sketches were in the form of "piano-vocal" or "short score," including vocal lines with "two to four staves of accompaniment with occasional notes on orchestration." These sketches supplied music for some, but not all, of the final portion of the libretto.

Puccini left 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. Puccini's publisher Tito 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 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.

Performance history

The premiere of Turandot was at La Scala, Milan, on Sunday 25 April 1926, one year and five months after Puccini's death. Rosa Raisa held the title role. Tenors Miguel Fleta and Franco Lo Giudice alternated in the role of Prince Calaf in the original production, although Fleta had the honor of singing the role for the opera's opening night. It was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. In the middle of act 3, 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. These are the words reported by Eugenio Gara, who was present at the premiere. A reporter for La Stampa recorded the words slightly differently: "Qui finisce l'opera, rimasta incompiuta per la morte del povero Puccini/Here the opera ends, left incomplete by the death of poor Puccini." It is also frequently reported that Toscanini said, more poetically, "Here the Maestro laid down his pen".

A newspaper report published the day before the premiere states that Puccini himself gave Toscanini the suggestion to stop the opera performance at the final notes composed by Puccini:

Poche settimane prima di morire il Maestro, dopo aver fatto sentire l’opera ad Toscanini, esclamò: "Se non riuscirò a condurla a termine, a questo punto verrà qualcuno alla ribalta e dirà: "L’autore ha musicato fin qui, poi è morto" Arturo Toscanini ha raccolto con commozione queste parole e, con la pronta adesione della famiglia di Giacomo Puccini e degli editori, volle che la sera della prima rappresentazione, l’opera apparisse come l’autore la lasciò, con l'angoscia di non poterla finire.
(A few weeks before his death, after having made Toscanini listen to the opera, Puccini exclaimed: "If I don't succeed in finishing it, at this point someone will come to the footlights and will say: 'The author composed until here, and then he died.'" Arturo Toscanini related Puccini's words with great emotion, and, with the swift agreement of Puccini's family and the publishers, decided that the evening of the first performance, the opera would appear as the author left it, with the anguish of being unable to finish).

Two authors believe that the second and subsequent performances of the 1926 La Scala season, which included the Alfano ending, were conducted by Ettore Panizza and Toscanini never conducted the opera again after the first performance. However, in his biography of Toscanini, Harvey Sachs claims that Toscanini did conduct the second and third performances before withdrawing from the production due to nervous exhaustion. A contemporary review of the second performance states that Toscanini was the conductor, taking five curtain calls at the end of the performance.

Turandot quickly spread to other venues: Rome (Teatro Costanzi, 29 April, four days after the Milan premiere), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón, 23 June), Dresden (6 September, in German), Venice (La Fenice, 9 September), Vienna (14 October; Mafalda Salvatini in the title role), Berlin (8 November), New York (Metropolitan Opera, 16 November), Brussels (La Monnaie, 17 December, in French), Naples (Teatro San Carlo, 17 January 1927), Parma (12 February), Turin (17 March), London (Covent Garden, 7 June), San Francisco (19 September), Bologna (October 1927), Paris (29 March 1928), Australia 1928, Moscow (Bolshoi Theatre, 1931). Turandot is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire and it appears as number 17 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.

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 as Turandot 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, Audrey Stottler, and Sharon Sweet as Princess Turandot; Sergej Larin and Lando Bartolini as Calaf; and Barbara Frittoli, Cristina Gallardo-Domâs, and Barbara Hendricks 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 anthems, 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 and other versions

The debate over which version of the ending is better is still open, but the consensus generally tends towards Alfano's first score.^{[citation needed]} The opera with Alfano's original ending was first recorded by John Mauceri and Scottish Opera (with Josephine Barstow and Lando Bartolini as soloists) for Decca Records in 1990 to great acclaim. The first verifiable live performance of Alfano's original ending was not mounted until 3 November 1982, by the Chelsea Opera Group at the Barbican Centre in London. However, 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. Alfano's second ending has been further redacted as well: Turandot's aria "Del primo pianto" was performed at the premiere but cut from the first complete recording; it was eventually restored to most performances of the opera.

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 completion sanctioned by Ricordi and the Puccini estate, using Puccini's sketches but also expanding the musical language. It was subsequently performed in the Canary Islands and Amsterdam conducted by Riccardo Chailly, Los Angeles conducted by Kent Nagano, at the Salzburg Festival conducted by Valery Gergiev in August 2002. However, its reception has been mixed.^[25]

^[26]

Roles

Synopsis

Place: Peking, China

Time: Legendary times

Act 1

In front of the imperial palace

A Mandarin announces the law of the land (Aria – Popolo di Pechino! – "People of Beijing!"). The Prince of Persia has failed to answer the three riddles, and he is to be beheaded at the next moonrising. As the crowd surges towards the gates of the palace, the imperial guards brutally repulse them, causing a blind old man to be knocked to the ground. The old man's slave-girl, Liù, cries out for help. A young man hears her cry and recognizes that the old man is his long-lost father, Timur, the deposed king of Tartary. The young Prince of Tartary is overjoyed at seeing Timur alive, but still urges Timur to not speak his name because he is afraid that the Chinese rulers, who have conquered Tartary, may kill or harm them. Timur then 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, the Prince had smiled at her (Trio with chorus – The crowd, Liù, Prince of Tartary, Timur: Indietro, cani! – "Back, dogs!").

The moon rises, and the crowd's cries for blood dissolve into silence. The doomed Prince of Persia, who is on his way to be executed, is led before the crowd. The young Prince is so handsome and kind that the crowd and the Prince of Tartary decide that they want Turandot to act compassionately, and they beg Turandot to appear and spare his life (Aria – The crowd, Prince of Tartary: O giovinetto! – "O youth!"). She then appears, and with a single imperious gesture, orders the execution to continue. The Prince of Tartary, who has never seen Turandot before, falls immediately in love with her, and joyfully cries out Turandot's name three times. Then the Prince of Persia cries out one final time. The crowd, horrified, then screams out one final time. The Prince of Persia is then beheaded.

The Prince of Tartary is dazzled by Turandot's beauty. He is about to rush towards the gong and to strike it three times—the symbolic gesture of whoever wishes to attempt to solve the riddles so that he can marry Turandot—when the ministers Ping, Pang, and Pong appear. They urge him cynically to not lose his head for Turandot and to instead go back to his own country (Fermo, che fai?). Timur urges his son to desist, and Liù, who is secretly in love with the Prince, pleads with him not to attempt to solve the riddles (Signore, ascolta! – "Lord, hear!"). Liù's words touch the Prince's heart. He begs Liù to make Timur's exile more bearable by not abandoning Timur if the Prince fails to answer the riddles (Non piangere, Liù – "Do not cry, Liù"). The three ministers, Timur, and Liù then try one last time to stop the Prince (Ah! Per l'ultima volta! – "Ah! For the last time!") from attempting to answer the riddles, but he refuses to heed their advice.

He calls Turandot's name three times, and each time Liù, Timur, and the ministers reply, "Death!" and the crowd declares, "We're already digging your grave!" Rushing to the gong that hangs in front of the palace, the Prince strikes it three times, declaring himself to be a suitor. From the palace balcony, Turandot accepts his challenge, as Ping, Pang, and Pong laugh at the Prince's foolishness.

Act 2

Scene 1: A pavilion in the imperial palace. Before sunrise

Ping, Pang, and Pong lament their place as ministers, poring over palace documents and presiding over endless rituals. They prepare themselves for either a wedding or a funeral (Trio – Ping, Pang, Pong: Ola, Pang!). Ping suddenly longs for his country house in Honan, with its small lake surrounded by bamboo. Pong remembers his grove of forests near Tsiang, and Pang recalls his gardens near Kiu. The three share their fond memories of their lives away from the palace (Trio – Ping, Pang, Pong: Ho una casa nell'Honan – "I have a house in Honan"), but they are shaken back to the realities of Turandot's extremely bloody reign. Continually, they have been accompanying young men to their deaths and are now recalling the horrors of their ghastly fate. As the palace trumpet sounds, the ministers ready themselves for another spectacle as they await the entrance of their Emperor.

Scene 2: The courtyard of the palace. Sunrise

The Emperor Altoum, father of Turandot, sits on his grand throne in his palace. Weary of having to judge his isolated daughter's sport, he urges the Prince to withdraw his challenge, but the Prince refuses (Aria – Altoum, the Prince: Un giuramento atroce – "An atrocious oath"). Turandot enters and explains (In questa reggia – "In this palace") that her ancestress of millennia past, Princess Lo-u-Ling, reigned over her kingdom "in silence and joy, resisting the harsh domination of men" until she was ravished and murdered by an invading foreign prince. Turandot claims that Lo-u-Ling now lives in her, and out of revenge, Turandot has sworn to never let any man wed her. She warns the Prince to withdraw but again he refuses. The Princess presents her first riddle: Straniero, ascolta! – "What is born each night and dies each dawn?" The Prince correctly replies, Speranza – "Hope." The Princess, unnerved, presents her second riddle (Guizza al pari di fiamma – "What flickers red and warm like a flame, but is not fire?") The Prince thinks for a moment before replying, Sangue – "Blood". Turandot is shaken. The crowd cheers the Prince, provoking Turandot's anger. She presents her third riddle (Gelo che ti da foco – "What is ice which gives you fire and which your fire freezes still more?"). As the prince thinks, Turandot taunts him, "What is the ice that makes you burn?" The taunt makes him see the answer and he proclaims, "It is Turandot! Turandot!"

The crowd cheers for the triumphant Prince. Turandot throws herself at her father's feet and pleads with him not to leave her to the Prince's mercy. The Emperor insists that an oath is sacred and that it is Turandot's duty to wed the Prince (Duet – Turandot, Altoum, the Prince: Figlio del cielo). She cries out in despair, "Will you take me by force? (Mi porterai con la forza?) The Prince stops her, saying that he has a riddle for her: Tre enigmi m'hai proposto – "You do not know my name. Tell me my name before sunrise, and at dawn, I will die." Turandot accepts. The Emperor then declares that he hopes that he will be able to call the Prince his son when the sun next rises.

Act 3

Scene 1: The palace gardens. Night

In the distance, heralds call out Turandot's command: Cosi comanda Turandot – "This night, none shall sleep in Peking! The penalty for all will be death if the Prince's name is not discovered by morning". The Prince waits for dawn and anticipates his victory: Nessun dorma – "Nobody shall sleep!"

Ping, Pong, and Pang appear and offer the Prince women and riches if he will only give up Turandot (Tu che guardi le stelle), but he refuses. A group of soldiers then drag in Timur and Liù. They have been seen speaking to the Prince, so they must know his name. Turandot enters and orders Timur and Liù to speak. The Prince feigns ignorance, saying they know nothing. But when the guards begin to treat Timur harshly, Liù declares that she alone knows the Prince's name, but she will not reveal it. Ping demands the Prince's name, and when Liù refuses to say it, she is tortured. Turandot is clearly taken aback by Liù's resolve and asks Liù who or what gave her such a strong resolve. Liù answers, "Princess, love!" (Principessa, amore!). Turandot demands that Ping tear the Prince's name from Liù, and Ping orders Liù to be tortured even more. Liù counters Turandot (Tu che di gel sei cinta – "You who are begirdled by ice"), saying that Turandot too will learn the exquisite joy of being guided by caring and compassionate love. [The words of that aria were actually written by Puccini. Waiting for Adami and Simoni to deliver the next part of the libretto, he wrote the words and when they read them, they decided that they could not better them.] Having spoken, Liù seizes a dagger from a soldier's belt and stabs herself. As she staggers towards the Prince and falls dead, the crowd screams for her to speak the Prince's name. Since Timur is blind, he must be told about Liù's death, and he cries out in anguish. When Timur warns that the gods will be offended by Liù's death, the crowd becomes subdued, very afraid and ashamed. The grieving Timur and the crowd follow Liù's body as it is carried away. Everybody departs, leaving the Prince and Turandot. He reproaches Turandot for her cruelty (Duet – The Prince, Turandot: Principessa di morte – "Princess of death"), then takes her in his arms and kisses her in spite of her resistance. (Here Puccini's work ends. The remainder of the music for the premiere was completed by Franco Alfano.)

The Prince tries to convince Turandot to love him. At first she feels disgusted, but after he kisses her, she feels herself becoming more ardently desiring to be held and compassionately loved by him. She admits that ever since she met the Prince, she realized she both hated and loved him. She asks him to ask for nothing more and to leave, taking his mystery with him. The Prince, however, then reveals his name: "Calaf, son of Timur – Calaf, figlio di Timur", thereby placing his life in Turandot's hands. She can now destroy him if she wants (Duet – Turandot, Calaf: Del primo pianto).

Scene 2: The courtyard of the palace. Dawn

Turandot and Calaf approach the Emperor's throne. She declares that she knows the Prince's name: Diecimila anni al nostro Imperatore! – "It is ... love!" The crowd cheers and acclaims the two lovers (O sole! Vita! Eternità).

Critical response

While long recognised as the most tonally adventurous of Puccini's operas, Turandot has also been considered a flawed masterpiece, and some critics have been hostile. Joseph Kerman states that "Nobody would deny that dramatic potential can be found in this tale. Puccini, however, did not find it; his music does nothing to rationalize the legend or illuminate the characters." Kerman also wrote that while Turandot is more "suave" musically than Puccini's earlier opera, Tosca, "dramatically it is a good deal more depraved." However, Sir Thomas Beecham once remarked that anything that Joseph Kerman said about Puccini "can safely be ignored".

Some of this criticism is possibly due to the standard Alfano ending (Alfano II), in which Liù's death is followed almost immediately by Calaf's "rough wooing" of Turandot, and the "bombastic" end to the opera. A later attempt at completing the opera was made, with the co-operation of the publishers, Ricordi, in 2002 by Luciano Berio. The Berio version is considered to overcome some of these criticisms, but critics such as Michael Tanner have failed to be wholly convinced by the new ending, noting that the criticism by the Puccini advocate Julian Budden still applies: "Nothing in the text of the final duet suggests that Calaf's love for Turandot amounts to anything more than a physical obsession: nor can the ingenuities of Simoni and Adami's text for 'Del primo pianto' convince us that the Princess's submission is any less hormonal."

Ashbrook and Powers consider it was an awareness of this problem – an inadequate buildup for Turandot's change of heart, combined with an overly successful treatment of the secondary character (Liù) – which contributed to Puccini's inability to complete the opera.^[16] Another alternative ending, written by Chinese composer Hao Wei Ya, has Calaf pursue Turandot but kiss her tenderly, not forcefully; and the lines beginning Del primo pianto (Of the first tears) are expanded into an aria where Turandot tells Calaf more fully about her change of heart.

Concerning the compelling believability of the self-sacrificial Liù character in contrast to the two mythic protagonists, biographers note echoes in Puccini's own life. He had had a servant named Doria, whom his wife accused of sexual relations with Puccini. The accusations escalated until Doria killed herself – though the autopsy revealed she died a virgin. In Turandot, Puccini lavished his attention on the familiar sufferings of Liù, as he had on his many previous suffering heroines. However, in the opinion of Father Owen Lee, Puccini was out of his element when it came to resolving the tale of his two allegorical protagonists. Finding himself completely outside his normal genre of verismo, he was incapable of completely grasping and resolving the necessary elements of the mythic, unable to "feel his way into the new, forbidding areas the myth opened up to him"^[37] – and thus unable to finish the opera in the two years before his unexpected death.

Instrumentation

Turandot is scored for three flutes (the third doubling piccolo), two oboes, one English horn, two clarinets in B-flat, one bass clarinet in B-flat, two bassoons, one contrabassoon, two onstage Alto saxophones in E-flat; four French horns in F, three trumpets in F, three tenor trombones, one contrabass trombone, six onstage trumpets in B-flat, three onstage trombones, and 1 onstage bass trombone; a percussion section with timpani, cymbals, gong, one triangle, one snare drum, one bass drum, one tam-tam, one glockenspiel, one xylophone, one bass xylophone, tubular bells, tuned Chinese gongs,^[38] one onstage wood block, one onstage large gong; one celesta, one pipe organ; two harps and strings.