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Helga Rabl-Stadler
G. Schwaighofer
Josef Hussek
Great success
Turandot
The little match girl
DaPonte in Santa Fe
Masterclasses
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The Camerata
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Giacomo Puccini
"TURANDOT"
Luciano Berio reconstructs the finale
The Ricordi publishing house made Puccini’s complete sketches for the last two scenes of the opera available to Luciano Berio – 23 sheets of manuscript paper written on both sides. The reconstruction of the finale by Berio which will be performed for the production in Salzburg contains a few surprises.
Berio has seen Puccini’s sketches for the finale
Turandot ordered the people of Peking, under threat of torture and death, to find out the name of the stranger who solved the three riddles and thus acquired the right to her hand in marriage. Finally the old man Timur and the slave Liù are brought in by the emperor’s henchmen. Just as Timur, the usurped king of the Tartars is about to be tortured, Liù steps forward and admits that she alone knows the name of the alien prince. While she is being tortured, she manages to seize a dagger from one of the torturers and stabs herself.
Death was stronger than art
At the world premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s final opera on 25 April 1926 – with Rosa Raisa, Maria Zamboni and Miguel Fleta in the main roles – the curtain fell after this scene. In the Teatro alla Scala in Milan the lights went up. The orchestra rose and Arturo Toscanini turned to the audience and said, “The opera ends here for at this point the maestro died. In this case death was stronger than art.” From the 36 pages of sketches for the finale that Puccini left behind – the libretto existed – Franco Alfano, one of Puccini’s pupils, created a finale. Toscanini compelled him to make several cuts but nevertheless still did not consider it to be the best solution. It was not merely an artistic problem that had made Puccini despair in trying to solve the central question of the opera: the transformation of the woman who hated men into one capable of love. It was an emotional problem, founded in the composer’s own image of women as well as in the image of his time. Manon Lescaut, Mimi, Tosca and Cio Cio San – they were all victims because they were only defined by their love. At the same time they also contrasted the devilish image of women predominant on the opera stage at the turn of the century: Carmen, Salomé, Lulu. Puccini had tried, as Ulrich Schreiber explains in his Guide for Advanced Opera-goers (volume 3), “to combine the femme fatale’s dependence on her desires with the virginity of a femme fragile to create a Utopia of living together in emotional harmony”. However, these fragile women become victims and objects of a “romantic” consumer experience. Therefore in his last opera, with the transfiguration of love as being an all-pervading power, Puccini was trying to find the solution of a problem of life and of his own life problem.
In a sequence with salome and lulu
Turandot appears in the first act but does not sing. Kalaf falls in love with her purely as an image – as an abstraction of femininity. In her aria in the second act a scream resounds from the distant past – the scream of injured and obviously raped femininity. This scream, which, as stated literally, resounds from generation to generation and takes refuge in her soul, evokes in her and through her the ancestress Lou-Ling. When Turandot turns to the princes who try to court her as suitors, she predicts, “Io vendico su voi quella purezza, quel grido e quello morte. I take revenge on you for that purity, that scream and that death.” In her sexual and pathological hatred, which does not stop even at the sadistic torture that leads to Liù’s suicide, Turandot resembles the murderous women from the operas of Strauss and Berg. Not until after Liù’s death – a true love death – can Turandot be released of her trauma.
In his biography of Puccini, Mosco Carner – making a psychoanalytical correlation of his life and work – argues that Puccini never struggled so desperately with a scene in any of his other operas as with the transformation of Turandot, from the princess “with the girdle of ice”, who condemns all suitors to death, to a woman capable of love. The fact that Puccini did not find a solution and did not know how in the end Turandot and Kalaf could be seen standing together as a noble couple with equal rights, can hardly be explained with his death. It was not death that was stronger than art but more a question of art not finding the means to portray the transformation of someone full of hatred to someone who could fall in love.
Puccini had already started working on the duet two years before his fatal illness was diagnosed – and he desperately slaved away at it. The solution that little Liù’s love death is what makes the ice engirdling Turandot melt (as Liù sings in her song of farewell from the world) is dramatically plausible, but the music suggests nothing of the possibility of Turandot and Kalaf coming together in their feelings. Is it therefore a “musical and dramatic failure” (Carner) that Puccini did not find a cathartic solution? Puccini loved his heroines and in their death “enforced an absolution in our pity aroused through his music”, yet he should have allowed the dead Liù to be resurrected in Turandot so as to make “her transformation aesthetically credible” (Schreiber). Puccini’s death prevented a Utopian solution that would have been only an apparent solution. We can be all the more curious about the solution Luciano Berio has found in his new version of the finale.
Jürgen Kesting
Monika Rittershaus, Pamina in the
portrait
Synopsis
Act 1:
A public square in Peking, outside the imperial palace
A mandarin proclaims a decree by the emperor to the people: Princess Turandot
will marry the suitor who can solve the three riddles put to him. Anyone
who fails will be executed when the moon rises. A Persian prince will
be the next victim.
In the crowd following the ritual half in curiosity and half with repulsion,
Kalaf suddenly discovers his blind father led by the slave-girl Liù. No
one recognises the old man – the usurped king of Tartary – who, like his
son, is a fugitive.
As the moon rises and the blood-thirsty mood intensifies in anticipation
of the executioner, a boys’ choir singing a Chinese folk song announces
the arrival of Turandot. She counters the crowd’s pity for the Prince
of Persia, who faces his fate with composure, with a silent, merciless
gesture sentencing him to death. Nevertheless Kalaf pro- claims to his
father – from a distance the prince is heard screaming the name Turandot
before his execution – that he is going to bid for her hand.
As Kalaf is about to strike the gong as a signal, the three ministers
Ping, Pang and Pong appear. They want to persuade him to withdraw from
his resolve as do Timur and especially Liù in her aria “Signore, ascolta”.
Kalaf, however, who fails to recognise her love for him and consoles her
in his aria “Non piangere, Liù”, is blinded by Turandot’s beauty. In case
he should fail he entrusts his father to the care of Liù and strikes the
gong three times.
Act 2, Scene 1:
A pavilion
Ping, Pang and Pong prepare simultaneously for the two possibilities:
a wedding or an execution. They bemoan China’s fate since Turandot, instead
of her ageing father, has been ruling the country. They used to be influential
ministers, now they have been degraded to assistants of the executioner.
They long nostalgically for their peaceful home in the country. A choir
is heard from outside, singing in commemoration of Turandot’s earlier
victims and expressing the hope that finally someone will come who can
penetrate her aloofness and return peace to the country.
Scene 2:
The court of the imperial palace
Slowly the crowd of spectators gathers and the state dignitaries take
their seats. From his high ivory throne the frail Emperor Altoum tries
to talk Kalaf out of his intention but in vain. A solemn chorale wishes
him 10,000 years of life. As at the beginning, the mandarin reads the
fatal decree and again before the arrival of the princess a boys’ choir
is to be heard. In the aria “In questa reggia” Turandot relates how her
ancestress was once raped and murdered by aliens. To commemorate her Turandot
has made a vow to take her revenge on every man who requests her hand.
She then poses three riddles for Kalaf to solve and he knows the right
answer to each one: hope, blood and Turandot. The people celebrate Kalaf’s
triumph. Horrified, Turandot asks her father to release her from fulfilling
the decree. Altoum, however, insists on the law being respected. Kalaf
offers her a way out. As he only wants her to be his wife of her own free
will, she can maintain her freedom if she discovers his name by dawn.
Then he would be prepared to die. The emperor hopes to be able to receive
him as his son-in-law.
Act 3, Scene 1:
Night in the palace gardens
Distant heralds proclaim Turandot’s decree that no one is allowed to sleep
that night on pain of death, until the name of the unknown suitor is revealed.
Kalaf adopts the phrase in his romanza “Nessun dorma” (“No man shall sleep”)
and is sure of his victory: he will only confess his name on Turandot’s
lips. Ping, Pang and Pong promise to help Kalaf to escape if he abandons
his intention. They try to bribe him with half-naked young girls, gold
and jewellery but to no avail. The crowd then threatens Kalaf and guards
drag in his father with Liù: they have been seen together. Turandot demands
that the old man – Kalaf’s father – be interrogated but Liù steps forward
and claims that she alone knows the name of Turandot’s suitor. She is
not afraid of the tortures ordered by the princess and in the aria “Tu,
che di gel sei cinta” (“You with a girdle of ice”) she reveals the source
of her strength: love. Then she seizes a dagger from one of her torturers
and stabs herself. Her body is carried away in a funeral procession. When
Kalaf embraces Turandot she begs him humbly to leave her and to keep his
secret. But Kalaf reveals his identity to her. Turandot’s pride returns,
she has Kalaf’s life in her hands and intends to proclaim her decision
publicly.
Scene 2:
The court of the imperial palace
The emperor, the courtiers and the people have gath-ered as they did for
the riddle scene. Turandot appears together with Kalaf and announces that
she has finally discovered his name – Love. The crowd rejoices and sings
the reprise of the victorious theme from Kalaf’s aria “No man shall sleep”.
Ulrich Schreiber
Giacomo Puccini
Turandot
With the completion of the third act
by Luciano Berio (2001)
Sung in Italian with German and
English supertitles
Conductor Valery Gergiev
Stage director David Pountney
Sets Johann Engels
Costumes Marie-Jeanne Lecca
Lighting design Jean Kalman
Chorus master Rupert Huber
Turandot Gabriele Schnaut
Altoum Robert Tear
Timur Paate Burchuladze
Kalaf Johan Botha
Liù Cristina Gallardo-Domas
Ping Boaz Daniel
Pang Vicente Ombuena
Pong Steve Davislim
A Mandarin Robert Bork
Vienna Philharmonic
Vienna State Opera Chorus
Tölz Boys Choir
Grosses Festspielhaus
New production: 7 August 2002
10, 15, 18, 22, 26, 30 August 2002
Performances begin at 7 p.m.
All performances are sold out