Opera in the 20th Century

October 15, 2004

Turandot Synopsis

Posted by Timothy M. Ballard at 12:11 PM | Link to this post

Turandot Giacomo Puccini
ACT I: Peking, legendary times. In a quarter swarming with people near the Forbidden City, a Mandarin reads an edict: any prince seeking to marry Princess Turandot must answer three riddles - and if he fails, he will die. Her latest suitor, the Prince of Persia, is to be executed at the rise of the moon. Bloodthirsty citizens urge the executioner on, and in the tumult a slave girl, Liù, calls out for help when her aged master is pushed to the ground. A handsome youth recognizes him as his long-lost father, Timur, vanquished king of Tartary. When the old man tells his son, Prince Calàf, that only Liù has remained faithful to him, the youth asks her why. She replies it is because once, long ago, Calàf smiled on her. The mob again cries for blood, but the moon emerges, and all fall into sudden, fearful silence. The doomed suitor passes on the way to execution, moving the onlookers to call upon Turandot to spare his life. Turandot appears and, with a contemptuous gesture, bids the execution proceed. The crowd hears a death cry in the distance. Calàf, smitten with the princess' beauty, determines to win her as his bride, striding to the gong that proclaims the arrival of a new suitor. Turandot's ministers Ping, Pang and Pong try to discourage the youth, their warnings supplemented by the entreaties of Timur and the tearful Liù. Despite their pleas, Calàf strikes the fatal gong and calls out Turandot's name. ACT II: In their quarters, Ping, Pang and Pong lament Turandot's bloody reign, praying that love will conquer her icy heart so peace can return. As the populace gathers to hear Turandot question the new challenger, the ministers are called back to harsh reality. The aged Emperor Altoum, seated on a high throne in the Imperial Palace, asks Calàf to give up his quest, but in vain. Turandot enters and tells the story of her ancestor Princess Lou-Ling, brutally slain by a conquering prince; in revenge Turandot has turned against all men, determining that none shall ever possess her. She poses her first question: what is born each night and dies each dawn? "Hope," Calàf answers correctly. Unnerved, Turandot continues: what flickers red and warm like a flame, yet is not fire? "Blood," replies Calàf after a moment's pause. Shaken, Turandot delivers her third riddle: what is like ice but burns? A tense silence prevails until Calàf triumphantly cries "Turandot!" While the crowd gives thanks, the princess begs her father not to abandon her to a stranger, but to no avail. Calàf generously offers Turandot a riddle of his own: if she can learn his name by dawn, he will forfeit his life. ACT III: In a palace garden, Calàf hears a proclamation: on pain of death, no one in Peking shall sleep until Turandot learns the stranger's name. The prince muses on his impending joy; but Ping, Pang and Pong try unsuccessfully to bribe him to withdraw. As the fearful mob threatens Calàf with drawn daggers to learn his name, soldiers drag in Liù and Timur. Horrified, Calàf tries to convince the mob that neither knows his secret. When Turandot appears, commanding the dazed Timur to speak, Liù cries out that she alone knows the stranger's identity. Though tortured, she remains silent. Impressed by such endurance, Turandot asks Liù's secret; "Love," the girl replies. When the princess signals the soldiers to intensify the torture, Liù snatches a dagger from one of them and kills herself. The grieving Timur and the crowd follow her body as it is carried away. Turandot remains alone to confront Calàf, who at length takes her in his arms, forcing her to kiss him. Knowing physical passion for the first time, Turandot weeps. The prince, now sure of his victory, tells her his name. As the people hail the emperor, Turandot approaches his throne, announcing that the stranger's name is - Love.

Unfinished Masterpiece

Posted by Timothy M. Ballard at 12:08 PM | Link to this post

Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's last masterpiece before his death, Turandot, the opera that salutes the power of love.

Giacomo Puccini was born in 1858, the son of the musical director of the Cathedral of S. Martino in Lucca. Though Puccini might have been inclined toward music as a profession through his own discretion, there was never a thought that he would do otherwise as it was assumed he would carry on family tradition. Though Puccini received training in various areas of music, including chamber music and organ, his true love was the opera. He is remembered as a master of operatic realism.


Puccini's first operas were true to 19th Century Italian harmonies with drama that portrayed balance of action. Puccini's operas were strong in emotional appeal and conflict, but they also contained gentler segments of repose and reflection. An example of such balance is suggested by Puccini's "farewell" and "death" arias that are marked with passionate lyrical melodies contrasted against underlying tones of morbidity.


Toward the end of his career, Puccini was influenced by the compositions of Rimsky-Korsakov, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, early forerunners of the Impressionistic Music Era. As Impressionistic music diverged from traditional harmonies, Puccini endeavored to assimilate a more contemporary style into the writing of "Turandot," an opera based on Italian dramatist's Carlo Gozzi's play by that name. Puccini's "Turandot" is by far his most grand opera, replete with climaxes, choruses, and full pageantry.


Princess Turandot, according to the fable that served as Gozzi's inspiration, lived in the City of Peking. She was destined to marry but had pledged to thwart any attempts of suitors because of an ancestor's abduction by a prince and resultant death. With each suitor, Turandot posed three riddles. If the suitor answered all three riddles correctly, he won the hand of the princess. If he failed, he lost his head.


Act I opens as the Prince of Persia, who has failed to answer Turandot's riddles, is being escorted to the execution block. Calaf, a handsome prince in his own right, notices a slave girl who is attending to her fallen master. When Calaf approaches the scene, he recognizes his father whom he has not seen in many years. After a sentimental reunion, the threesome turn their attention to the execution, joining others in the crowd who are calling for Princess Turandot's reprieve of execution for the Prince of Persia. The princess does appear; however, there is no reprieve. She orders the execution to proceed.


In Act II, Calaf believes that Turandot's heart can be conquered by love, and against the objections of his newly found father, he presents himself as a suitor. Having successfully answered the Princess's questions, Calaf turns the tide and becomes the author of his own challenge: if Turandot can learn his true identity by dawn, he will forfeit his life. Turandot is enraged and in Act III issues a proclamation to the city, prohibiting the sleep of anyone until she can discover the name of the young prince. Frightened by their princess's obvious rage, some of the people of Peking surround Calaf and draw daggers to intimidate him. Others race to find the old man with whom he had been seen earlier. Soon they have brought his father and the slave girl who serves him to the scene. Princess Turandot herself appears and orders that the girl be tortured. Though the torture is intense, the young girl will not give up Calaf's name. Turandot is impressed by the girl's endurance and asks her secret. The girl replies, "It is love." Calaf tears Turandot's veil from her face and kisses her. The princess gives way to tears and Calaf knows he has broken through the barrier that has kept her heart shut from all emotion. The chorus applauds the power of love.


Puccini was suffering from cancer of the throat as he endeavored to complete his Turandot masterpiece. He lacked the composition of a final duet between Calaf and Turandot when he died post-surgery in Brussels. Puccini's colleague, Franco Alfano, completed the duet as well as a finale, using Puccini's notes and sketches. The opera was first performed in 1926, two years after Puccini's death.








Written by Elaine Schneider
Copyright 2002 by PageWise, Inc

October 13, 2004

October 15: The End of Opera?

Posted by Charles T. Downey at 8:58 PM | Link to this post

The two operas we will examine this week were premiered within a few months of one another in 1925 to 1926, both conducted by legendary conductors. One represents the end of traditional Italian opera, and the other is sometimes regarded as the perfect modernist opera, combining atonal techniques with a disturbing psychological analysis of its characters. Was this the one-two punch that was the beginning of the decline of opera?

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Giacomo Puccini, Turandot, Joan Sutherland, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924), Turandot
Premiered on April 25, 1926, at La Scala in Milan, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

Libretto (in Italian only): Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, after a play by Carlo Gozzi, Re Turandot (1762) or actually after Friedrich Schiller's German adaptation of Gozzi, Turandot, Prinzessin von China, from 1802). Suites of incidental music for performances of the play were composed by Carl Maria von Weber and Ferrucio Busoni. Operas on the same story were also composed by Antonio Bazzini in 1867, and by Busoni in 1917

As for the "Chinese" sound of the opera, the closest Puccini got to China was listening to the Chinese musicbox owned by his friend Baron Fassini, who had been to China. Puccini supposedly derived some of the opera's main themes from this musicbox. His reading on Chinese culture and ritual was extensive, including a book by J. A. van Aalst, Chinese Music (Shanghai, 1884).

The opera was left incomplete (ending in the middle of the third act, after the death of Liù) at the composer's death in 1924; finished by Franco Alfano, in consultation with Toscanini.

Turandot will be broadcast live on radio from the Met, on January 29, 2005.

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Alban Berg, Wozzeck, Hildegard Behrens, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado (recorded live at the Vienna Staatsoper, 1987)
Alban Berg (1885–1935), Wozzeck
Premiered at the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin, December 14, 1925, conducted by Erich Kleiber.

Libretto (in German only): by the composer, based on a play by Georg Büchner (1813–1837), Woyzeck (completed in 1837, published in 1879, first performed in 1913 in Munich). The play is derived from real events in Leipzig, in 1821, when Johann Christian Woyzeck, a barber and former soldier, had murdered his mistress, Frau Woost. His lawyer's defense of insanity was rejected by the court, and Woyzeck was hanged publicly in Leipzig's market square in 1824. The case was written up in a medical journal, to which Büchner's father, a doctor, subscribed.

Berg saw the first performance of the play in Vienna in 1914 and immediately began sketching out plans for the opera. World War I delayed his plans. The full score was completed in 1922, the cost of which was underwritten by Alma Mahler, to whom the work was dedicated.

Messiaen remarked that he hesitated to compose an opera, because he thought that nothing was possible after Wozzeck, which was typical of many at the time.

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