Let’s settle this right now: it is pronounced as it is written: TOO-rahn-doat. You pronounce the “t” at the end. For years, there has been a tendency among some to drop the final “t.” This is affected at best and slightly racist at worst. In Italian, every written letter is pronounced (except “h”). English speakers find it an imposition to say anything in a Latin language, but the general idea out there seems to be that if we must say something in Italian, then we must give it a French twist, since French is as far as we will go away from our own language. (We do this with Spanish too: note the sports announcers who persist in saying Sha-VEZ and Pe-REZ for Chávez and Pérez, as if shifting the accent makes it more elegant or something.) We use French names for most Italian cities, but that dates from a time when the only people in England who had reason to mention Italian cities were French speakers themselves. Let’s not make the problem any worse than it is. Pronounce the final “t.” And that’s a long “o” in the third syllable: don’t let it rhyme with “polka dot.” If anyone corrects you, stand firm and call them insulting names. Incidentally, do not pronounce the first syllable “Tyu” unless you’re the general manager of the Royal Opera House.
Turandot is Puccini’s last opera, unfinished at the time of his death in 1924. It is perhaps the grandest of grand operas, a huge spectacle with a prominent role for chorus and one of opera’s most sophisticated orchestral scores. It is usually cited as the last grand opera of the great tradition. Turandot is Puccini’s only foray into the realm of the fairy tale, as far away from verismo as one can get. And yet, all of Puccini’s trademark glories are present: a beautiful lyric soprano role (not the title role, for heaven’s sake, but the other one), a lusty if unreal tenor with some dreamy solos, marvelous ensemble work, and so forth. Still, there is much in Turandot that is unique in Puccini’s output: a commedia dell’arte trio who, ironically, form the most human core of the work, a massive and ritualized face-off between tenor and soprano, and, most remarkably, a title role written for a soprano of Wagnerian proportions. Turandot also affords opportunities for the most gargantuan stagings imaginable. It is simply impossible to overdo this opera, although many have tried. Performances of Turandot are always an event.
Solid, and growing. Despite initial success at La Scala in 1926 and at the Met the following year, Turandot remained something of a curiosity for a long time. London audiences were thrilled by Eva Turner’s interpretation of the role in 1937, but the opera was left aside for several decades. The Met, too, put Turandot on the shelf until a series of legendary performances with Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli blew off everyone’s wigs in 1961. At least since the 1960s, Turandot has been a staple of the repertory. If it isn’t in the Bohème/Tosca/Butterfly category of most frequently performed operas, it is not for any lack of public affection. It is simply a matter of logistics. Turandot is grand opera and requires grand resources—a huge chorus needing a lot of rehearsal time, big productions, and so forth. While many smaller companies like to show their creativity with cleverly reimagined interpretations of the big operas, Turandot is better left to the power-horses. (There have been some successful Turandot?, in the smaller companies, but generally they tend to be depressing affairs, like a friend’s first attempt at a chocolate soufflé.) Then there is the title role. She sings very little and doesn’t even open her mouth until well past the halfway point of the opera—but then she had better blow everyone out of their collective somnolence or there isn’t really much point to this opera. While some lyric sopranos have been able to acquit themselves decently in this role, the performances people remember best are those sung by the great leather-lungs of vocal history. There’s really no way around it. Sopranos like that don’t grow on trees, and the ones that exist rarely have the capacity to sing in what remains, after all is said and done, the Italian style.
THE PRINCESS TURANDOT (soprano): The bloodthirsty moon goddess of myth and legend, a cosmic avenger of women. The role calls for a unique voice type in Puccinian canon: a full dramatic soprano. Yet she has very little to sing in terms of actual time onstage. Still, a soprano can become a legend in her own right with a memorable performance of this curious role.
CALAF, EXILED PRINCE OF TARTARY (tenor): Calaf is as wooden and unreal as any tenor in Italian opera (and that’s saying a lot). However, his music is sublime and nuanced and reveals depths not indicated in the libretto (although few are the tenors who are able to discover them). In theory, the role does not require a voice any heavier than the standard Puccini tenor, but clearly the more heroic the voice, the more impression he will make.
TIMUR, DEPOSED KING OF TARTARY, CALAF’S FATHER (bass): A sympathetic character and a bit of a moral center.
LIù, A SLAVE GIRL (soprano): The self-sacrificing soprano role and a difficult role for the audience to digest, as Puccini and his librettists conceived it. Still, she has the most beautiful music in the opera and often steals the show. The role requires a lyric soprano of great focus and clarity (to be heard in ensembles), as well as dreamy floating vocal abilities.
PING, THE GRAND CHANCELLOR (baritone); PANG, THE GENERAL PURVEYOR (tenor); AND PONG, THE CHIEF COOK (tenor): Three characters, always together onstage, derived from commedia dell’arte tradition. Ping, Pang, and Pong interrupt the action in Act I before weaving into it, appear on their own in Act II, Scene 2, and are fully integrated in Act III. The roles require supreme musicianship and voices that, while not necessarily large, have enough character to be heard through ensembles and then have the ability to blend with each other.
THE EMPEROR ALTOUM OF CHINA (tenor): A very ancient personage, whose voice must project an otherworldly quality.
A MANDARIN: The “announcer” of the opera. He makes only two appearances, but must convey all the authority of Confucian order.
Setting: A public square in Peking, with the Imperial Palace to one side. Legendary times.
“People of Peking!” the Mandarin announces to the throng. “This is the law! Turandot the Pure will be the bride of any suitor of royal blood who solves the three riddles given him, but should he fail, he pays with his audacious head!” The crowd gasps. “The Prince of Persia,” the Mandarin continues, “was not favored by fortune. He dies by the executioner’s hand when the moon rises!” The bloodthirsty crowd calls for the moon to rise and the executioner to hurry to the palace. Guards strike at them. In the confusion, old, blind Timur is knocked over and Liù, a young slave girl who is his only companion, calls for help. Calaf, among the crowd, recognizes Timur as his father. Each had thought the other dead after the far-off battle that cost Timur the throne of Tartary. He tells Calaf how he wandered all the way to Peking as an exile, accompanied only by the faithful Liù. Calaf asks Liù who she is and why she alone has remained loyal to Timur. “I am nothing,” Liù tells him. “A slave.” Once, many years before, Calaf had deigned to smile at her at court, and she has never forgotten. The executioner’s men come to sharpen a sword on the grindstone, urged on by the crowd, who call for more death. The executioner will never lack for work in Turandot’s kingdom! But why does the moon delay? Let the severed, bloodless head rise in the sky! A glimmer of moonlight appears and the crowd ecstatically calls for the executioner, Pu-Tin-Pao. A group of boys walk past, singing of the spring that never came and the snows that never melted. The Prince of Persia is led on toward his execution: he is young and handsome, and the crowd’s bloodlust immediately turns to pity. They call for Turandot to reprieve the Prince, joined by Calaf, who curses the woman who would kill such an innocent. Turandot appears on her imperial balcony, and with a silent gesture orders the execution to proceed. She disappears, and the procession moves on. Calaf is smitten by the sight of Turandot. Do the others not smell the perfume that permeated the air when she appeared? Timur and Liù urge Calaf away from this place of death, but he insists that life is here, and can only repeat the name “Turandot!” “Turandot!” cries the Prince of Persia from afar, cut off by the executioner’s ax and the gasp of the crowd. Is that how Calaf wants to end up? asks Timur. Calaf is not dissuaded but approaches the gong to declare himself a suitor.
Comment: The opening scene of Turandot is a magnificent and thrilling panorama that assaults the senses while never losing its command of subtleties for an instant. Loud, dissonant chords bring up the curtain (sort of Tosca, sideways), followed by a series of repeated chords wrung out of the orchestra in an excellent depiction of anarchic tension. The Mandarin’s pronouncement sets the tone, musically and dramatically, of severity and otherworldliness. Listen for the weird bass xylophone figures: besides sounding like rattling bones, they are a direct quote from Richard Strauss’s Salome. It is followed by two descending sighs of “ah” from the chorus, who then dominates the rest of the scene. Their first chorus, beginning with the fortissimo cries of “Muoia!” (“Let him die!) establishes their volatility. Liù, Timur, and Calaf can interject their lines between waves of choral sound, appropriate for individuals almost crushed by a throng. The chorus “fades out” for Liu’s simple explanation of the smile she received at court years ago. She floats up (on a good night) to a pianissimo B-flat, which is enough, in the world of Italian opera, to indicate to even the dullest member of the audience that she is thoroughly in love with Calaf. This brief moment is interrupted by the chorus in full strength, singing “Gira la cote!” (“Turn the [sharpening] stonel” for the executioner), a rolling piece of music culminating in four jarring, offbeat laughs. All this adrenaline suddenly transforms (celesta, harps muffled with pieces of paper between the strings), into the hymn to the moon, an extraordinary piece of choral writing. The peaceful, meditative beginning belies the rather twisted words, as the people compare the moon to both a bloodless, severed head, and the distant, virginal Princess Turandot. It’s interesting to compare this lunar hymn to Mascagni’s “Hymn to the Sun” from his Japanese opera Iris, which was very popular at one time in Italy (and we know every success of Mascagni’s rankled Puccini a bit). The Iris hymn is a giant wall of sound, an impressive mass of music that of course couldn’t be more un-Japanese if it tried. Puccini, conversely, here has a diaphanous, seemingly formless collection of exclamations from small divisions of the chorus, punctuated by unlikely interjections from the orchestra (a snippet of melody in the strings here, some taps on the xylophone there). The loud climax is both surprising yet inevitable—a great accomplishment for any composer. It is the executioner’s name decried on three repeated notes, a “dah-dah-dahhhh” construction that is a certain sign of death in the vocabulary of Italian opera (cf. the judgment Scene in Verdi’s Aida A The massive sound evanesces and we hear the last thing our ears expect: a small boys’ chorus singing the lovely Jasmine Flower song, “Mou-Li Hua,” one of Puccini’s discoveries from Baron Fassini’s invaluable music box and one of the most important themes in the opera. Some commentators say the theme, as Puccini uses it, represents the innocent aspect of Turandot, but if that’s true, then the converse must be true as well: perhaps the “innocent” children are indicted in the general bloodlust. In any case, their sudden vocal intrusion is marvelously eerie and an ingenious and rare use of boys’ voices, quite unlike the usual annoying brats who appear in so many operas. (Granted, at least in Bohème and Tosca the boys are supposed to be annoying brats, but boys’ choruses in opera are generally a trial on the nerves.) The tune takes various forms throughout the opera: in this first instance, as Girardi has rather brilliantly demonstrated, Puccini has lightly harmonized the authentic, pentatonic Chinese tune in a Western manner. Specifically, the notes he adds create a scale in the mixolydian mode—a Gregorian scale that strikes the listener (who need not know squat about Gregorian modes) as being both ritualistic and archaic. The eeriness is accentuated by two alto saxophones hidden in the wings providing part of the harmony for the children.
This change of tone leads into the appearance of the Prince of Persia, a very curious role. He struts nobly and elegantly across the stage and off the other side. There is another chorus to mark his progress, only this time the crowd is lyrical, full of pity, and begging the Princess to spare the young man’s life. This is not a subtle change of heart, as Puccini created, one by one, with the community in Fanciulla: it is the fickleness of a bestial crowd. What is astounding about this chorus, besides its sheer beauty, is the way that Calaf’s voice emerges from the wall of sound, the beginning of individual characterization in this opera from amid the vast panorama. The Princess appears on the balcony of the royal palace with the orchestra thundering out the “Mou-Li Hua” theme while the chorus repeats “Principessa! la grazia!” to the same notes they had cried out in their previous climax, summoning the executioner Pu-Tin-Pao. It is exciting music and connects the Princess to the executioner implicitly rather than saying they are the same—that is, in a way spoken drama could not. (It’s also a good time for the production team to conjure up some great coup de theater to match the swelling music and the direction in the libretto that says she appears “like a vision.”) Mimì Tosca, and Butterfly were all heard before they were seen: Turandot not only reverses the order—she only makes a silent gesture here—but delays her actual singing until the second scene in the next act. The music diminishes to a creepy quiet (the strings bang out a few bars col legno and then add mutes) as Calaf admits his change of mood: he has fallen in love with Turandot. The morbidity of his change of heart, and a sly comment on the toxicity of love, is underscored by a three-measure chant (a four-note Chinese melody from the edition of folk songs Ricordi had provided) by some priests (basses) for the soul of the Prince of Persia—a tad premature, but operatically apt. Calaf continues his pining for Turandot in a crescendo that climaxes with the triple repetition of “Turandot!” The final cry ends on a high B-flat, answered by the Prince of Persia, offstage, with almost the same cry: he ends a half-tone lower, A-natural. There is a “smush” sound (I know of one production where they used a large hammer and a watermelon offstage for this aural moment), followed by a grotesque sudden tumbling effect in the orchestra, neatly depicting the severed head rolling off the scaffold. That’s right: the producers must pay a tenor the scale wages for standing in the wings in his T-shirt and jeans, hitting a single A-natural. If you thought the note was produced by the same guy who floated across the stage looking pale and poignant, then you’re every director’s ideal audience member. The visible Prince is usually a dancer, or, in the Mets case, a “professional movement specialist.” By the same token, don’t expect the prima donna of the evening to get all tarted up in imperial drag an hour before her real entrance just to make an “Off with his head!” gesture. A body double will usually be used instead.
Calaf’s trip to the gong is interrupted by Ping, Pang, and Pong, the Emperor’s ministers. Fool! they tell him. This is the way toward the slaughterhouse, nothing more. Does Calaf wish to be cut into little pieces? And for what? For Turandot? Take away the crown and the robes, and there’s nothing there. Just flesh, and you can’t even eat it. They will give Calaf a hundred wives, with two hundred lovely legs. Turandot’s maids order silence from the balcony. The Princess is sleeping. Ping, Pang, and Pong approach Calaf to dissuade him from the gong, but shades of dead suitors arise to urge Calaf on. Let him strike the gong that they may see her again! The ministers assure Calaf that Turandot doesn’t exist. Only the executioner is real. Just then, Pu-Tin-Pao appears with the severed head of the Prince of Persia. There’s love for you! Timur begs Calaf not to leave him alone. Liù begs one word: she could not bear it if Calaf died, and she and Timur would have to die alone on the road of exile.
Comment, scene and aria, “Signore, ascolta”: Ping, Pang, and Pong cut through the musical texture of the opera like a hot knife through butter. Their first entrance is derived from another of Baron Fassini’s music box tunes—and it’s tricky stuff. The meter alternates in every measure, and their interjections are sometimes in unison but often are fractions of a beat off of each other. You don’t need the biggest voices in the world to sing these rules, but you need first-rate musicians who can count. It is effectively comical music (not a moment too soon in this heavy atmosphere) and chattily philosophical. The offbeat, curiously off-balance music for these three paradoxically make them, at least at this point, the voice of sanity in an insane world. It is the intrusion of comedy (represented, in the Italian tradition, by rhythm, as we saw in Gianni Schicchi) as well as pithy little bits of philosophy (whereas all that we have heard previously is pure emotion). Their appearance blurs the lines between comedy, madness, and true wisdom, an interesting trope of the commedia dell’arte tradition. The maids who call for silence (nine sopranos, sometimes in unison and sometimes divided) change the tone yet again. Ping, Pang, and Pong try again with Calaf with another rhythmically charged Chinese tune played in pizzicato tweets in the oboes. Liu’s aria “Signore, ascolta,” the first aria of the opera, is one of Puccini’s “hits”: a wonderfully diaphanous melody built on a pentatonic scale but making no other attempt to be Chinese. It plainly establishes Liu as the most genuine human being in the opera.
Calaf tells Liù not to weep: if that smile meant anything to her years ago, she must be strong and stay with Timur. By tomorrow, perhaps, they will be alone in the world again. Timur, Liù, and the ministers urge Calaf to back down, but he imperiously bangs the gong three times, and is led off by the guards to face the riddles of Turandot. Ping, Pang, and Pong laugh at the madness.
Comment, scene and aria, “Non piangere, Liù”: Calaf’s solo here begins as a typically Puccinian effusion of lyric tenorial beauty but shortly becomes the central thread of a wildly elaborate ensemble. During the “Prince of Persia” ensemble, Calaf “surfed” off the waves of choral sound: here, the chorus provides the interjections. He has become the motivator of the action. The ensemble builds, in a swaying motion (like a tug of war between Calaf and the other soloists, with the chorus entering bit by bit in a sort of tug of war with itself, both warning of death and encouraging Calaf to bang the gong so they can get another execution). The orchestra builds with the complex vocal line, adding xylophone, tuned gongs, timpani, harp arpeggios, tam-tam, and a whole lot of noise before Calaf finally strikes the (untuned, onstage) gong. The “Mou-Li Hua” theme bursts out again in the chorus before Calaf is led off, the curtain falling on Puccini’s most ambitious act and one of the greatest sweeps of music ever unleashed in the theater.
Scene I
Setting: A pavilion in the Imperial Palace.
Ping, Pang, and Pong ponder the situation in their royal pavilion. They prepare lanterns for a wedding and incense for a funeral. They are ready for either outcome, although so far it has been nothing but death. Oh China! How peacefully she once reposed in her seventy centuries of serenity according to the ancient rules! Now, nothing but three bangs on a gong, three riddles, and a head falls off. What miserable work! Once, they were respected ministers. Now, nothing but ministers of death. They reminisce about their peaceful country palaces. Will they ever know such peace again? No, not with all the madmen in love who keep coming to Peking! Remember the Prince of Samarkand? Of Burma? Kirghiz? The Indian? All dead. Crowds are heard murmuring for another execution. Oh, farewell China and her divine lineage, until she who knows no love shall lie naked and intoxicated by the joys of passion! Only then will there be peace again in the sacred kingdom. They hear the drums and the crowds assembling, and depart for yet another execution.
Comment, Ping, Pang, and Pong: First-timers at Turandot often have a certain amount of trouble with this scene, which lasts about twelve minutes. It certainly requires more focus than any of Act I. Equally predictable is the response of certified Puccini fans (like me) who will invariably tell them that this is the best part of the opera. The critics have had a rough time with it until recently. W.J. Henderson of the New York Sun, reviewing the Met premiere in 1927, found them “a perverted dream of Gilbert and Sullivan,” and their music an “incoherent babble.” Indeed, without benefit of in-house translations or familiarity with the libretto, the talkiness will be bewildering to non-Italian-speaking audiences. It also must be admitted that many performers (or, more likely, their diabolical directors) will exacerbate the problem by a great deal of unnecessary prancing around. The best productions sit them on the stage in clear view of the conductor and let them sing. This, however, elicits the most common and tired critical complaint about this scene: that it stops the action. Who cares? Verdi and Wagner strove, spectacularly, to free opera from its bel canto forms and separate the line between recitative and aria—which is to say, between action and reflection. But that doesn’t mean any subsequent opera that chooses to do otherwise is a failure. This is a complaint voiced by people who don’t have an idea in their heads newer than 1860, and it’s high time it died. If this were still an issue, every panoramic shot in films would have to be jettisoned. Since the days of Verdi and Wagner, we have experienced Einstein, Pirandello, and science fiction in all its forms, and it’s pretty clear that some moments in time take longer than others. There’s really no such thing as real time. Perhaps this is why baroque opera has made such a great and unexpected comeback in the last twenty-five years. Perhaps the “mannerisms” of that era were a form of insight that only becomes clear now. The critics don’t question the issue of “stopping the action” in baroque opera, however, but you will read it frequently regarding this scene. Maybe it’s because it’s Puccini, a composer rooted in verismo whose every opera takes place in “real time.” There is no standing back from the action and commenting on it. But Turandot is a departure for Puccini in every way, and this fantasy opera requires a moment to stand back and reflect on the goings-on.
Musically, it has the form of a complicated sonata. It begins with a scurrying theme (Chinese, harmonized curiously with more tweets in the oboes) as the three comment. This gives way to a stately, gorgeous theme as they have their dreamy nostalgia for the peace of their country homes. The final section brings in more rapidly rhythmic Chinese themes, here in unison, there in an interwoven counterpoint. There is a gush of melody as the three bid farewell to the China of the ages, “Addio, amore! addio razza!” doubled in the strings as sentimentality briefly overlaps philosophical resignation. The finale is another fast Chinese theme as they try to imagine Turandot succumbing to love. The orchestra here is muted but seemingly almost at war with the singers: listen for the insanely “offbeat” pizzicato, chromatic run up the strings as the three sing their final salute to the ecstasies of love, “Gloria all’ ebbrezza e all’amore.” The pulses of a march, in drums and muted harps, keep growing under the melodic line, and we go directly into…
Scene 2
Setting: The courtyard of the palace.
The crowd gathers in the courtyard of the Imperial Palace to witness the latest suitor try the three riddles. They point out Ping, Pang, and Pong, who remain silent. Soon, the Emperor appears and the crowd greets him with the Imperial Anthem. The Emperor, very old and with a distant voice, announces that he is bound by his terrible oath to go through with the ceremony, but he asks the stranger to leave before facing the questions. Calaf hails the Son of Heaven and asks to face the test. The Emperor asks the stranger to let him live out his fading years with no more bloodshed, but Calaf asks the Son of Heaven to let him face the test. No more blood in the palace! says the Emperor, but Calaf asks the Son of Heaven to face the test. So be it, the Emperor acquiesces. The crowd repeats the anthem, and the Mandarin repeats the law: Turandot the Pure will wed any man of royal blood who answers the three riddles, but if he fails, he will pay with his head. The boys sing for the Princess to appear and make everything shine with her splendor. Turandot advances toward the throne.
In this palace, she announces, many thousands of years ago, a cry rang out that has lodged itself in her heart. Princess Lou-Ling, who reigned in peace and joy, defying the tyranny of men, now lives in Turandot! The people mutter that this was when the king of Tartary unfurled his battle flags. The story is known to all, Turandot continues. China was conquered and Lou-Ling was dragged away by a stranger—a stranger like you! she says, pointing at Calaf. The people say that Lou-Ling has rested for centuries in her giant tomb. O princes, Turandot cries, I take revenge on all of you! “No man shall ever have me!” She tells the stranger not to tempt fate: the riddles are three, but death is one! “No,” Calaf counters, “the riddles are three and life is one!” The people ask Turandot to let the stranger face the test.
Comment, scene and aria, “In questa reggia”: The transition to the palace takes place within a few bars of a march. Ideally, the revelation of the imperial grandeur should make the audience squeal with delight, and Puccini has obliged with “dum-dum-dums” in the brass to let us know precisely when to squeal. Expect every visual shtick the opera house can come up with in this moment—I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a high school marching band onstage someday. The crowd sings the Imperial Anthem, “Diecimila anni,” another theme harmonized in the mixolydian mode and thus adding to the ritual atmosphere that is the essence of this scene. The score says the Emperor is lowered from above the stage amid clouds of incense, but don’t count on that (singers hate it). The voice of the ancient Emperor should always sound strange and, if possible, old. In 1987 the Met hired the Swiss art song and specialty-role tenor Hugues Cuenod to make his somewhat belated Met debut in this role at the spry age of eighty-four. He was great. Bizarre castings in this role are to be expected. His interaction with Calaf accomplished, we are prepared for the long-awaited entrance of Turandot by a repetition of the Imperial Anthem (this time in hushed, reverential tones) and a reiteration of the “Mou-Li Hua” tune (more alto saxophones in the wings). She begins her great narration, “In questa reggia,” in a deceptively simple declamation, although the orchestra quiets down and her voice should ideally be laser-focused and chilling even if she has yet to crank up the volume. The two mutters of the chorus each push her louder and higher, with a few changes of key. When she sings “Mai nessun m’avrà” (“No man shall ever have me!”), she shifts into F-sharp minor, which was the executioner’s key. The dullest member of the audience will get the point. The final third of the aria demands full volume while hovering well over the staff. This is dramatic soprano range, the sort that is demanded by the most challenging Wagner and Strauss roles. Puccini seems to have obliged by writing music that is not, on the written page, among the most compelling or beautiful in the corpus of his works. What matters here is whether or not the soprano in question can muster the sound and size of her voice to portray Womanhood in its fiercest aspects: the blood-drinking virgin moon goddess who accepts the sacrifice of young men as her due, and the all-too-human woman who is exacting revenge for a crime thousands of years ago that somehow lives on in her. By this denial of the passage of time, there is the implication that she is avenging all women for all the crimes committed on them since the beginning of time. Now we must be convinced that she has met her match in Calaf, since the aria ends as a sort of duet, if you can call it that. It’s more of a battle to the death. She sings (or rather declaims) her line “Gli enigmi sono tre, la mort’è una” (“The riddles are three, but death is one”), he answers a step higher, and they repeat their versions of the line together for the third time, climaxing on a fermata high C that lasts until one or the other turns blue or motions the conductor to stop the torture. Don’t worry about what they’re saying, since the most you’ll be able to make out will be “Wha-WHAH-wha-WHAH-wha-Whah.” The chorus rushes in as the phrase mercifully concludes after another fermata high A, effectively covering any applause, lack thereof, or, most likely, gasping on the part of the singers. The whole passage is, on face value, a somewhat cheesy vocal circus act, but in the hands of truly great singers appropriate for these roles, it is astounding. It can encapsulate, better than any painting, movie, or any other piece of art I can think of, all the hostility that has ever existed between Man and Woman in both their fleshly and cosmic dimensions.
Turandot announces the first riddle: “What soars above all humankind, and all call to it, is reborn every night and dies every new day?” “Yes!” Calaf cries out, “It is born in my heart now! It is hope!” The wise men consult the scrolls: hope is the correct answer, “Yes, hope, that always disappoints,” adds Turandot. She continues: “It smolders like a flame, but is not a flame. It is a fever, a passion, sometimes a delirium! Inertia makes it sag. It grows cold with faintness or death, but dreams of conquest make it flare up. You hear its voice in fear, and it glows like the setting sun!” The Emperor tells the stranger to take heart, and the crowd encourages him. “Yes, Princess!” Calaf says. “It burns in my veins when you look at me. It is blood!” The wise men concur: it is blood. Turandot orders the guards to strike the crowd, who now are wholly on Calaf’s side. She continues: “Ice that gives you fire and from your fire takes more ice … white and dark, if it frees you it makes you a slave, and if it accepts you as a slave, it makes you a king!” She tells the stranger to hurry with his answer… his paleness shows he is lost! “Victory gives you to me!” Calaf says. “Turandot!” The wise men consult the scrolls. The answer is Turandot. The people hail the victor and their glorious Emperor. Turandot begs the Emperor not to throw her into the arms of the stranger like a slave. He stands firm that his oath is sacred, but she counters that she is sacred. She insists no man shall ever have her. Does the stranger want her like this, reluctant, trembling? No, Calaf answers, he wants her aflame with love. The crowd urges her to accept the stranger, who risked his life for her love. She offered him three riddles; now he will offer her but one: tell him his name. If she can discover it by morning, he is prepared to die. The Emperor hopes that by dawn he may call the stranger his son. The people hail the Emperor.
Comment: The fused-voice hostility that was the end of “In questa reggia” becomes a ritualized standoff here. All of the questions and answers sound similar but are individualized in details: listen for the creepy clarinet figures in the second question. The questions themselves are rather goofy, but it fits the fairy-tale quality of the story. Busoni got predictably brainy in his version, and it works against the story as a whole. Still, it’s rather amazing that Calaf can answer even these riddles, since there is nothing in his music or what he says to indicate that brains are included in his list of ostentatiously functioning organs. His offer to die for Turandot if she finds out his name makes us further question where he summoned the brains to answer the riddles. It does, however, offer an opportunity to return to some very lyrical singing (despite an optional high C that really never comes out right when he says he wants her burning with love) and is what we would call a “tease,” since it includes strains of the celebrated Act III aria “Nessun dorma.” The act concludes with a very noisy and a more complicated harmonization of the Imperial Anthem, this time including stage brass and even an organ to conclude the act with a massive sense of ritual.
Scene 1
Setting: The gardens of the palace.
Heralds announce the law: On pain of death, no one shall sleep in Peking this night until the stranger’s name is discovered. People pass to and fro, repeating the command: no one sleeps! Calaf appears. No one sleeps! Even you, Princess, he says, are awake in your cold rooms, staring at the stars this night. But his secret is shut inside him. No one will know his name. No, no, he will reveal it only on her lips, when he kisses her as the day breaks. Women are heard from afar, bemoaning that they will be killed unless the stranger’s name is found. Calaf orders the night to flee and the stars to set, for at dawn he will be victorious!
Comment, aria, “Nessun dorma”: This last great tenor aria of the Italian tradition is beautifully set up by the heralds (eight tenors, offstage) and the lamenting replies of the sopranos, also offstage. The first part of the aria is lyrical and very much at odds with what we have heard of the score so far while maintaining the C major of the introduction. There is a miraculous transition to the subsequent “plateau” of the aria: four notes in the violins, a plunk in the strings, and a quiet sigh in the bassoons, and we are in the “triumphant” key of G major. A lesser composer might have taken a minute or two to achieve the same transition and still not convince us well, as Puccini did, that all was right with the world, or soon would be. The climax of the aria, driven by the off stage chorus, is the last word, “vincerò.” The second syllable, a B-natural, is marked in the score as a sixteenth note, but you’ll never hear it sung that way and the tenor would probably be booed if he attempted it. Tradition (or decadence) dictates that this is the moment for the tenor to grab whatever organs he must and belt out a war cry of the ages. It’s funny, but many tenors who have no trouble nailing the high C in the riddle scene will completely shipwreck on this note, and he’s alone onstage and the orchestra is a mere murmur. It can be very painful. Not to reinforce the audience’s baser instincts, but it must be admitted that on the rare occasion when the tenor actually nails this note without sounding like a scalded cat, the effect is tremendous—like the passing of a communal kidney stone. The fact that the aria itself is hackneyed by overexposure in inappropriate places speaks to its quality. It was, I recall, used as the background music in a TV commercial for a luxury hotel in Los Angeles, probably the single worst instance ever of matching music to an intended message (“No one sleeps …”). In the context of the opera, however, it is a superb breath of fresh air. The orchestra sweeps directly into the following scene, theoretically eliminating the opportunity of an ovation. If the audience doesn’t at least try to interrupt the performance with applause, however, the rendition in question may be considered a failure.
Shadowy figures appear among the bushes: Ping, Pang, and Pong try to encourage the stranger to leave China. Does he want love? They present dozens of scantily clad girls to him. Let him take them all! Riches? They open caskets of the finest jewels in the world. Glory? They will lead him to vast empires. Calaf remains firm. The ministers, joined by the crowd, now beg the stranger to have pity on them. He doesn’t know what cruel tortures Turandot will inflict on all of them, but he is not dissuaded. Guards drag in Liù and Timur. These two were seen with the stranger. They will reveal his name! “They know nothing,” sneers Calaf. The crowd calls Turandot and tells her they have witnesses who know the stranger’s name. She orders Timur to speak, but Liù steps forward, saying she alone knows the stranger’s name, and she will never reveal it. This secret is her supreme joy. Soldiers restrain Calaf and begin to apply torture to Liù, demanding the name. She begs forgiveness but cannot obey. She cries out under torture. The Princess asks Liù what gives her strength to endure such pain. “Princess, it is love!” “Love?” Turandot asks. Yes, Liù explains. Her secret love makes these tortures sweet, because she endures them for him. They call the executioner, and Liù worries that she will break under the pressure. She demands Turandot hear her. “You who are wrapped in ice,” she says, “will love him too before the night is over. But alas I will see him no more.” She pulls a dagger and stabs herself. The crowd gasps, imploring Liù to reveal the name before she dies. She dies at Calaf’s feet.
Comment, scene and arias, “Tanto amore segreto” and “Tu che di gel sei cinta”: Although the music for the “presentation of the hoochie-koochie girls” is exotic and interesting, the visual presentation onstage is usually embarrassing rather than titillating or even offensive. No matter. The moment soon passes and the mood shifts when Timur and Liù are dragged onstage. Here we come across a major problem: nearly all commentators have complained that the onstage torture of Liù was totally unnecessary, and they’re right. Armchair psychologists have a field day exploring Puccini’s kinks through this scene (the torture was, in fact, his idea). Leaving aside the issue of Puccini’s “Neronian instincts” for the moment and focusing on the drama at hand, we can see that the story does not in any way benefit from this protracted abuse. It all flows better when the torture is minimized and we can move directly to her two solos, but fat chance of that. Today’s theater is firmly committed to “shock and awe” tactics, and you can expect a hefty dose of dungeon slave antics, or some director’s conception of the same, in this problematic moment. Liu then must sing two beautiful arias, a hell of a way to make a living. The first, “Tanto amore segreto,” is a mostly gossamer-thin lyrical flight of fancy, doubled by solo and then unison violins. It sounds quite a bit like some of Mimì’s music, and therefore as shocking in the context of this score as “Nessun dorma.” It’s also a good time for the soprano to lay on all the tricks in her magic vocal bag since, let’s not forget, she will be using this moment to try to steal the show from the much louder lead soprano. After a bit more torture (Pu-Tin-Pao comes back), she has her second and more famous aria, “Tu che di gel sei cinta” (the lyrics were Puccini’s own). The orchestra pulses quietly like a stifled sob (timpani, bass drum included). This gorgeous aria requires all the upper range, pianissimo lyricism of the previous aria, plus a dose of heft in the lower ranges. See if the soprano can pull it off without resorting to fake chest tones. If she can, nine times out often she actually will win the bigger ovation at the end of the night.
Timur approaches the body, telling Liù to get up … dawn is coming and they must wander the highways of exile yet another day. “Old man,” says Ping, “she is dead.” Timur berates the crowd for this crime and tells the people to pay homage to her spirit so she does not return to haunt them. Ping, Pang, and Pong are stirred by the death—they, who have seen so much death! All leave to bury Liù, begging her shade for mercy. Only Turandot and Calaf are left.
Comment, Liu’s funeral: Timur is the center of this ensemble, built around the same lines as “Tu che di gel sei cinta” with the pulse in the orchestra amplified. It is the sort of musical connection that cannot be explained by logical deconstruction, yet it makes perfect sense in performance and is truly moving, never failing to make an impression on the audience. It ends with all but Calaf and Turandot leaving the stage, the celesta holding a strangely piercing chord before resolving. This is the end of the score as completed by Puccini, and the moment where Toscanini made his famous pronouncement (whatever it was, exactly) on the night of the premiere. Calaf turns on the “Princess of Death,” accusing her of Liù’s death. Turandot is offended: she is the daughter of heaven! Calaf tells her her body is right here on earth, beside his. She resists, but he succeeds in kissing her passionately as the dawn begins to break. She sheds her first tears and admits how stirred she was when first she saw Calaf. His eyes shone with a hero’s light, and he has conquered her. Her glory is done. He tells her her glory only now begins. Ecstatically, he tells her his name: Calaf, son of Timur. She calls him before the people with her as trumpets announce the sunrise.
Comment: Poor Alf ano, stuck with the rotten assignment of the century, and it shows. His conclusion of the opera, contracted by Ricordi and accomplished with Toscanini’s help, was then cut by Toscanini. It was in this edited version that the opera was given at La Scala after the dramatic opening night and at the premiere performances in New York, London, Buenos Aires, and elsewhere. After the superbly weird conclusion of Liu’s funeral, loud brass introduces the tenor’s “Principessa di morte!” solo, a straightforward, less-than-inspired tenor solo. The brass and the outline of the theme are both Puccini’s, so Alf ano was stuck with them, although God alone knows what Puccini might have done with them. Alfano composed Turandot’s aria “Dal primo pianto,” and it is quite good. Toscanini threw it out the window, and it has only recently been heard with regularity. The old feeling was “Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible,” while the new thinking says that with the complete ending as Alfano wrote it, one has a chance of at least hearing a completed thought process by a very good composer. The love duet exists in long and short versions. In either case, it is loud and difficult to sing and again hampered by being neither Puccini nor first-rate Alfano. One thing is clear: the transformation that Puccini wanted, with Turandot becoming an actual human being, never happens. It’s one thing for a composer to write “Then, Tristan!” in the margins of an uncompleted manuscript, and another to write a new version of Tristan.
Another ending to Turandot, including the subsequent scene, has recently been composed by the Italian composer Luciano Berio. When Berio announced his intention, many gasped: the great contemporary composer known for his serialism, electronic music, and collage techniques did not strike many people as a logical person to complete Puccini’s final masterpiece! Berio surprised the gaspers, however, with a score that is melodic and true to Puccini’s spirit, as well as infused with many touches that Puccini would not in all likelihood have imagined but of which he may well have approved. The Berio ending has won great praise but has not yet become standard. Time alone will tell if it will survive as is or as only another interesting footnote to this well-footnoted opera.
Scene 2
Setting: The courtyard, as in Act II, Scene 2.
The people hail the Emperor. Turandot says she knows the stranger’s name: it is Love! The people hail Love as the light of the world.
Comment: We return to the palace, usually with much pageantry and waving of flags and other silliness to help us forget the problems of this behemoth. The chorus sings a verse of “Nessun dorma” for the finale. Ending with “Nessun dorma” is not unprecedented—Tosca ends with an orchestral outburst of the big tenor tune, much to the horror of most critics. The problem is that Puccini would have done something with the tune here if he had chosen to use it as the finale. He never wrote straightforward, unison choruses but always had something interesting going on at the same time, even if the average listener would have to hear it a few times to notice. What a sad irony that the whole magnificent tradition of Italian opera should end, not with a bang or a whimper, but a big, fat question mark.