thumb|Libretto, 1926
Turandot ( ; <small>see below</small>) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. Puccini died in 1924, and his opera was left unfinished. The music was completed by Franco Alfano and premiered on 25 April 1926, almost a year and a half after Puccini's death.
The opera is set in China and follows the Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold-hearted Princess Turandot. In order to win her hand in marriage, a suitor must solve three riddles, with a wrong answer resulting in his execution. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot refuses to marry him. He offers her a way out: if she is able to guess his name before dawn the next day, he will accept death.
Origin and pronunciation of the name
The title of the opera is derived from the Persian term <span lang="fa">Turāndokht</span> (, ; ), a name frequently given to Central Asian princesses in Persian poetry. Turan is a region of Central Asia that was once part of the Persian Empire. <span lang="fa" dir="ltr">Dokht</span> is a contraction of <span lang="fa" dir="rtl">dokhtar</span> (); in Persian, both the kh and t (<span lang="fa" dir="ltr">خ</span> and <span lang="fa" dir="ltr">ت</span> respectively) are pronounced.
Italian pronunciation dictionaries recommend pronouncing the final t. However, according to Puccini scholar Patrick Vincent Casali, the t is silent in the name of the opera and of its title character. Soprano Rosa Raisa, who created the title role, said that neither Puccini nor Arturo Toscanini, who conducted the first performances, ever pronounced the final t. Similarly, prominent Turandot Eva Turner did not pronounce the final t in television interviews. Casali maintains that the musical setting of many of Calaf's utterances of the name makes sounding the final t all but impossible. In 1722, François Pétis de la Croix published his Les Mille et un jours (), a collection of stories which were purportedly taken from Middle Eastern folklore and mythologies. One of these stories, believed to be inspired by Nizami, features a cold princess named Turandokht. However, it has been speculated that many of de la Croix's 'translated' stories were his own original creations, with no actual basis in Middle Eastern cultures.
thumbnail|450px|"In questa reggia" – quotation from the reduced score
Puccini 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 produced the text for the libretto. As with Madama Butterfly, Puccini strove for a semblance of authenticity by using music from the region, even commissioning a set of thirteen custom-made gongs. Baron Edoardo Fassini-Camossi, the former Italian diplomat to China, gave Puccini a music box that played 4 Chinese melodies. Puccini incorporated three of these melodies into his opera, the most memorable of which is the folk melody "Mòlìhuā" (). "Mòlìhuā" serves as a leitmotif for Princess Turandot's splendor. In total, eight of the themes from Turandot appear to be based on traditional Chinese music and anthems.
By March 1924, Puccini had completed the opera up to the final duet. However, he was dissatisfied 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. Two days later, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. Puccini seems to have had some inkling of the seriousness of his condition: before leaving for Brussels for treatment, he visited Arturo Toscanini and begged him, "Don't let my Turandot die." He died of a heart attack on 29 November 1924.
Completion of the score after Puccini's death
When Puccini died, the first two of the three acts were fully composed, including the orchestration. Puccini had composed and fully orchestrated Act Three 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 provided music for some, but not all, of the final portion of the libretto.
Toscanini recommended that Riccardo Zandonai be engaged to 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 II 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. 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; he wanted the end of Turandot to sound as if it had been written by Puccini. Of this version, about three minutes were cut for performance by Toscanini, and it is this shortened version that is usually performed today.
Performance history
thumb|The opera “Turandot” at the Landestheater in the city of [[Linz َAustria, February 2026]]
Turandot premiered at the La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy, on 25 April 1926, a year and five months after Puccini's death. Rosa Raisa played Turandot. Tenors Miguel Fleta and Franco Lo Giudice alternated in the role of Prince Calaf, with Fleta singing the role on opening night. It was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. In the middle of Act III, the orchestra stopped playing. Toscanini turned to the audience and announced, "" (). The curtain was then lowered. A reporter for La Stampa recorded the words slightly differently: "" (""). Others have reported that Toscanini said, "Here, the Maestro laid down his pen." A newspaper report from 1926 states that Puccini asked Toscanini to stop the opera performance in the middle of Act III.
Soon after its premiere in Milan, Turandot spread to other cities.
{| class="wikitable"
|+
!City
!Location
!Date of first performance
!Starring
!Conductor
!Other information
|-
|Milan, Italy
|La Scala
|25 April 1926
|Rosa Raisa as Turandot
Miguel Fleta and Franco Lo Giudice as Calaf (alternating)
|Arturo Toscanini (premiere, and possibly second and third performances)
Ettore Panizza (all performances after Toscanini's departure)
|Sources disagree on which conductor led the second and third performances. Toscanini biographer Harvey Sachs claims that Toscanini conducted the second and third performances before withdrawing due to nervous exhaustion. Other authors believe that Toscanini left after the first performance.
|-
|Rome, Italy
|Teatro Costanzi
|29 April 1926
|Bianca Scacciati as Turandot
Francesco Merli as Calaf
|Edoardo Vitale
|
|-
|Buenos Aires, Argentina
|Teatro Colón
|23 June 1926
|Claudia Muzio as Turandot
Giacomo Lauri Volpi as Calaf
|Gino Marinuzzi
|
|-
|Dresden, Germany
|Anne Roselle as Turandot
Richard Tauber as Calaf
|Fritz Busch
|Performed in German
|-
|Venice, Italy
|-
|Vienna, Austria
|Bruno Walter
|
|-
|New York City, United States
|Metropolitan Opera
|16 November 1926
|Maria Jeritza as Turandot
Giacomo Lauri Volpi as Calaf
|Tullio Serafin
|
|-
|Brussels, Belgium
|Corneille de Thoran
|Performed in French.
|-
|Trieste, Italy
|Teatro Verdi
|22 December 1926
| as Turandot
Pedro Mirassou as Calaf
|Gennaro Papi
|
|-
|Naples, Italy
Antonio Bagnariol as Calaf
|Edoardo Vitale
|
|-
|Parma, Italy
|12 February 1927
|Elena Barrigar as Turandot
Franco Lo Giudice as Calaf
|Giuseppe Podestà
|
|-
|Bern, Switzerland
|Bern Theatre
|13 February 1927
|Maria Nezádal as Turandot
Peter Baust as Calaf
|Dr. Albert Nef
|
|-
|Turin, Italy
|17 March 1927
|Linda Barla Ricci as Turandot
Gennaro Barra-Caracciolo as Calaf
|Gino Marinuzzi
|
|-
|Baltimore, Maryland, USA
|Lyric Theatre Baltimore
|18 April 1927
|Florence Easton as Turandot
Edward Johnson as Calaf
|Tullio Serafin
|
|-
|Florence, Italy
|Politeama Fiorentino
|23 April 1927
|
|
|
|-
|Atlanta, Georgia, USA
|Municipal Auditorium
|27 April 1927
|Florence Easton as Turandot
Edward Johnson as Calaf
|Tullio Serafin
|
|-
|Cleveland, Ohio, USA
|Public Auditorium
|3 May 1927
|Florence Easton as Turandot
Armand Tokatyan as Calaf
|Tullio Serafin
|
|-
|London, United Kingdom
|Bianca Scacciati as Turandot
|Gaetano Merola
|29 October 1927
|
|-
|Budapest, Hungary
|Operaház
|14 November 1927
| as Turandot
as Calaf
|Nándor Rékai
|
|-
|Baku, Azerbaijan<br>(then Transcaucasian SFSR, Soviet Union)
|Verona Arena
|28 July 1928
|Anne Roselle as Turandot
George Thill as Calaf
|Alfredo Padovani
|
|-
|Australia
|9 June 1928
|Giannina Arangi-Lombardi as Turandot
Francesco Merli as Calaf
|Gaetano Bavagnoli
|
|-
|Kyiv, Ukraine<br>(then Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union)
|Gran Teatre del Liceu
|30 December 1928
|Iva Pacetti as Turandot
as Calaf
|Alfredo Padovani
|
|-
| Belgrade, Serbia
|National Theatre
|28 June 1930
|
|Lovro von Matačić
|
|-
|Moscow, Russia<br>(then Russian SFSR, Soviet Union) Instead of a single nationwide decree against it, any attempts to produce it were not approved. Both Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo released singles of the aria, with Pavarotti's reaching number 2 in the UK. The Three Tenors performed the aria at three subsequent World Cup Finals, in 1994 in Los Angeles, 1998 in Paris, and 2002 in Yokohama. 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.
Alfano's and other versions
The debate over which version of the ending is better is still open. 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 Casa 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. Alex Ross, in The New Yorker, notes that the new ending by Berio is preferred by some critics for making a more satisfactory resolution of Turandot's change of heart, and of being more in keeping with Puccini's evolving technique. However, its reception was mixed.
In late 2007, Chinese composer Hao Weiya made another completion before the opening of National Centre for the Performing Arts, also resulting in a mixed reception.
In 2022, Deborah Burton "realised" a finale to Turandot that utilised several of Puccini's autograph sketches that had not been previously studied. Based on decades of analyzing Puccini's compositional style, her finale has not yet been produced, although some possible venues are in the offing. A description of her finale can be found in her article, "Puccini's Last Act: Finishing Turandot" (The Opera Journal, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 1–60) and in her book The Finales of Turandot: Puccini's Last Act (Routledge, 2025).
In 2024, Washington National Opera premiered a newly commissioned ending by composer Christopher Tin and librettist Susan Soon He Stanton to very positive reviews. Michael Andor Brodeur of The Washington Post called the production 'refreshing' and declared "Even without the new ending — and Tin’s splendid musical additions, which draw sensibly from Puccini’s score while applying an entirely new emotional finish — Francesca Zambello’s "Turandot" crackles with fresh energy". Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the new ending "fits the opera neatly. Its sound and attitude, while contemporary, grow organically from Puccini’s original, like a savvy modern addition on a historic building."
In 2024, Opera Delaware premiered a newly commissioned completion by composer Derrick Wang, which was praised as "adept," "respectful," and "seamless."
Roles
{| class="wikitable"
|+
!Role
!Voice type
!Premiere cast, 25 April 1926<br>Conductor: Arturo Toscanini
|-
|Princess Turandot
|dramatic soprano
|Rosa Raisa
|-
|The Emperor Altoum, her father
|tenor
|Francesco Dominici
|-
|Timur, the deposed King of Tartary
|bass
|Carlo Walter
|-
|The Unknown Prince (Calaf), his son
|tenor
|Miguel Fleta
|-
|Liù, a slave girl
|soprano
|Maria Zamboni
|-
|Ping, Lord Chancellor
|baritone
|Giacomo Rimini
|-
|Pang, Majordomo
|tenor
|Emilio Venturini
|-
|Pong, Head chef of the Imperial Kitchen
|tenor
|Giuseppe Nessi
|-
|A Mandarin
|baritone
|
|-
|The Prince of Persia
|tenor
|Not named in the original program
|-
|The Executioner (Pu-Tin-Pao)
|silent
|Not named in the original program
|-
| colspan="3"|Imperial guards, the executioner's men, boys, priests, mandarins, dignitaries, eight wise men,<br>Turandot's handmaids, soldiers, standard-bearers, musicians, ghosts of suitors, crowd
|}
Synopsis
:Place: Peking, China
:Time: Legendary times
Act 1
thumb|[[Anna May Wong as Princess Turandot in a 1937 dramatic adaptation of Gozzi's Turandot at the Westport Country Playhouse]]
In front of the imperial palace
In China, the beautiful Princess Turandot will marry only a suitor who can answer three riddles. A Mandarin announces the law of the land (Aria – "Popolo di Pechino!" – "People of Peking!"). The Prince of Persia has failed to answer the three riddles, and he is to be beheaded at the next rising moon. 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 recognises 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 not to 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, foreshadowing the riddles to come. Then the Prince of Persia cries out Turandot's name one final time, mirroring the Prince of Tartary. The crowd, horrified, screams out one final time and the Prince of Persia is beheaded.
thumb|233px|"Non piangere, Liù",
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 block him. They urge him cynically not to lose his head for Turandot and instead to go back to his own country ("Fermo, che fai?" "Stop, what are you doing?"). 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
thumb|Il vasto piazzale della Reggia, set design for Turandot act 2 scene 2 (1924)
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"). They turn their thoughts back to how they have been accompanying young princes to their deaths. 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
thumb|233px|"In questa reggia", [[Bianca Scacciati and Francesco Merli]]
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 raped and murdered by an invading foreign prince. Turandot claims that Lo-u-Ling now lives in her and, out of revenge, Turandot has sworn never to 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?"). 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? () The Prince stops her, saying that he has a riddle for her: "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" – "Let no one 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 encircled by ice"), saying that Turandot too will learn the exquisite joy of being guided by caring and compassionate love. 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 alone. 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.
The Prince tries to persuade 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 realised she both hated and loved him. She tells 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 sings 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 toward it. 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 rationalise 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."
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.
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. 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" – 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 cor anglais; 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 one 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, and tuned Chinese gongs; one onstage wood block; one onstage large gong; one celesta; one pipe organ; two harps; and strings.
Recordings
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
- Elisa Alberti, Wandlungen einer Frauenfigur: Vergleichende Untersuchungen zu den Turandot-Bearbeitungen von Gozzi, Schiller, Puccini, Brecht, Frankfurt/Bern/New York (Peter Lang) 2012.
- William Ashbrook / Harold S. Powers, Puccini's «Turandot». The End of the Great Tradition, Princeton (Princeton University Press), 1991 ISBN 0-691-09137-4.
- Allan Atlas, Newly discovered sketches for Puccini's «Turandot» at the Pierpont Morgan Library, in: Cambridge Opera Journal, 3/1991, pp. 173–193.
- Virgilio Bernardoni, La maschera e la favola nell'opera italiana del primo Novecento, Venezia (Fondazione Levi), 1986.
- Sylvano Bussotti / Jürgen Maehder, Turandot, Pisa (Giardini), 1983.
- Mosco Carner, Puccini. A Critical Biography, London (Duckworth) 1958 ; 2. edition: London (Duckworth) 1974 ; 3. edition: London (Duckworth) 1992.
- Andrew Davis, »Il Trittico«, »Turandot« and Puccini's Late Style, Bloomington/IN (Indiana University Press) 2010.
- Gabriele Dotto (ed.), Turandot: uno sguardo nell'Archivio Storico Ricordi, Milano (Bertelsmann/Archivio Storico Ricordi), 2015.
- Linda B. Fairtile, Duetto a tre. Franco Alfano's completion of «Turandot», in: Cambridge Opera Journal 16/2004, pp. 163–185.
- Giovacchino Forzano, Turandot, Milan (Società Editrice Salsese), 1926.
- Michele Girardi, Turandot: Il futuro interrotto del melodramma italiano, in: Rivista italiana di musicologia 17/1982, pp. 155–181.
- Michele Girardi, Giacomo Puccini. L'arte internazionale di un musicista italiano, Venezia (Marsilio) 1995 ; english translation: Chicago (Chicago Univ. Press) 2000.
- Michele Girardi, ‘’Giacomo Puccini tra fin de siècle e modernità’’, Milano (Il Sagiatore) 2025, ISBN 978-8842834502.
- Natalia Grilli, Galileo Chini: le scene per «Turandot», in: Quaderni pucciniani, 2/1985, pp. 183–187.
- Peter Korfmacher, Exotismus in Giacomo Puccinis Turandot, Köln (Dohr) 1993.
- Kii-Ming Lo, Ping, Pong, Pang. Die Gestalten der Commedia dell'arte in Busonis und Puccinis Turandot-Opern, in: Peter Csobádi, Ulrich Müller et al. (edd.), Die lustige Person auf der Bühne, Anif/Salzburg (Müller-Speiser) 1994, pp. 311–323.
- Kii-Ming Lo, Turandot auf der Opernbühne, Frankfurt/Bern/New York (Peter Lang), 1996 ISBN 3-631-42578-3.
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External links
- Italy, Arena Di Verona Festival's First Abroad perform "Turandot" in Seoul 2024turandot.com
- A New Ending for Turandot - Christopher Tin and Susan Soon He Stanton | Washington National Opera -- Kennedy Center