Turandot

Introduction

The fairytale-like story of a woman’s softened stone heart is a symbolic narrative of trauma. The opera also lends itself to a sensationalist biographical decoding, which suggests that the piece reflects the tale of a perpetually jealous, harpy-like wife and a slandered, ultimately driven-to-death virgin maid. The music bears all the hallmarks of Puccini’s genius, and it is entirely justifiable that many consider the work a masterpiece. The composer masterfully balances dynamic, monumental scenes with moments of profoundly moving intimacy. He transforms the chorus into a constant dramatic force and catalyst – as exemplified by the executioner’s chorus with its frenetic energy and the moon chorus with its hypnotic presence in the first act – and does not treat it as mere background sound, instead crafting unique, surprising tonal colours. The music’s unpredictability and visionary modernism emerge as a natural progression, just as the psychological precision in pacing emotion and tension is uniquely focused. Even seemingly interlude-like moments, such as the scene with the three ministers, become unparalleled feats of musical and structural brilliance.

Though ostensibly about Turandot, a woman traumatized by a mythical family legacy, who is cruel to the point of perverse ecstasy, the opera truly resonates as Liù’s love tragedy. Liù, though merely a counterpoint, represents the necessary element of transformation, the demonstrator whose love costs her life, and who, fuelled by the memory of a single smile, endures the unbearable. The intensity of “Tu che di gel sei cinta” may owe something to the fact that the music came first, and Puccini himself wrote the text afterward. This spontaneous musical blossoming never fully rationalized itself. Turandot can be interpreted through various directorial extremes: she may be a traumatized victim healed almost unconsciously by Calàf, or a sadistic, ultra-feminist femme fatale who grows disgusted with herself under Calàf’s influence. Her aria “In questa Reggia,” Calàf’s emblematic “Non piangere, Liù” and “Nessun dorma,” as well as the duet “Principessa di morte,” belong among the all-time hits of the operatic repertoire.

Zoltán Csehy

Nessun dorma

“I’ve read Turandot, and I think this subject shouldn’t be dismissed.” In March 1920, after carefully studying Count Gozzi’s 18th-century play, Puccini launched the work on his final opera with this not particularly resolute, but sufficiently decisive statement. He then proceeded as he had with all his previous works: at times enthusiastic, at others dissatisfied, and often expecting more – and something different – from his librettists. When he felt it necessary, he took an almost hands-on approach, as when he handed his collaborators a kind of bullet-point scenario: “Turandot enters, agitated after the trials. A short scene ending with the threat: no one shall sleep in Peking. Tenor romance. No dinner, scene instead in which the three masks take the lead. They make offers: drink, women; they plead, beg Kalaf to speak. But he refuses: ‘I’ll lose Turandot.’ Then they threaten him with daggers.” In the end, of course, many things turned out differently in Act III around the forming Nessun dorma: for instance, the restless title character does not have an opening scene. And what turned out to be almost fated – and essentially cemented Turandot’s cult status – was that Puccini never managed to complete this act. The posthumous premiere of Puccini’s final opera, interrupted halfway through the third act at La Scala – with Toscanini’s famous words and a flood of tears from the audience – remains one of the great and touching legends of popular music history.

Beyond that, Turandot owes its distinguished place in the Italian operatic repertoire, in singers’ aspirations, and in public consciousness to a number of other factors. For instance, the triumphant tenor aria mentioned earlier, which had already represented the pinnacle of vocal ambition and listener delight long before the invaluable contributions of Pavarotti and The Three Tenors. After all, triumphantly crying out the word “victory” on a high B, this was something that already worked brilliantly for Puccini in Tosca! Then there’s the curious, one might say atypical, title role, since we must wait until the middle of the second act to hear the icy-hearted princess speak. Yet that lone Turandot aria, despite its extreme vocal demands, exerts an extraordinary pull on sopranos. “I think this aria up there at the top of the steps won’t be poorly received,” Puccini wrote in the spring of 1923, and, like so many of his stage-musical instincts, this one also proved flawless.

Ferenc László

The director’s concept

The end of the opera in musical terms was the beginning of my reflection as a director. It is widely known that Puccini died while creating his monumental masterpiece. The fatal Turandot is performed with two different musical endings on opera stages around the world. Either with Franco Alfano’s more frequently performed version, or that of Luciano Berio. For the 100^th anniversary of the composer’s death, the Hungarian State Opera presented both endings of Turandot, staged differently. The fairy tale of the Chinese princess, as completed by Berio, offers a new perspective. It takes us into the more cynical 21^st century, demanding a psychologically consequent and more contemporary interpretation, in which the mere fact of love can repeatedly be challenged.

Through the alliance forged behind the back of the princess who considers herself unattainable and powerful, the ensuing loss and drama, the change of character of the title character through a confrontation with the remorse resulting from bloodshed. Manipulation. Hunger for power. Gaining power. Love. Sexual desire. Pretending love. These are the motifs around which Puccini’s Turandot is built with Berio’s ending. I do not believe that Emperor Altoum is a ruler at the end of his regime about to retire, and Turandot is not simply a bloodthirsty imperial heiress, either. There is a serious power game going on here, in which the title character is an unwitting puppet, and Calàf is secretly conspiring with the Emperor, who has very definite ideas about the future of the empire. Turandot can be regarded as the “bad cop” here, with whose help the Emperor is able to liquidate the candidates for the throne he dislikes, in the midst of carnage and beheadings carried out on the pretext of his daughter’s marriage, so that the throne remains clean and he is not considered a bloodthirsty ruler.

Over time, Turandot realises the role she has been forced to play. She has a breakdown. Then she sees some hope that she can break out of her prison, but it is a great lesson for her that Calàf is no different from her father, even though the dashing, attractive, and talented man sways her emotionally... And love is only an ephemerous feeling. Moreover, for the man she favours is only a means to achieve his goal, i.e. power. This is perhaps a little less romantic than usual, but the interpretation is excellently supported by the new finale composed by Luciano Berio, which does not represent a joyful happy ending, but interprets the story with a much more critical and contemporary ending, and all this in a way that serves the original theatrical intention of Puccini humbly throughout.

Dóra Barta