1

WISE GUY S: The com poser of Tura nd ot flan ked by hi s tw o l i br ett ists .

Study guide to Giacomo Puccini’s romantic legend

TURANDOT Presented by Michigan Opera Theatre at the Detroit Opera House,

May 10-18, 2014

QUICK INFO • Opera in three acts • Set in and around the Imperial Palace of Peking, the capital of China, sometime in a

legendary ancient past • Premièred at La Scala in Milan, April 25, 1926 • Text by Giuseppe Adami (1878-1946, b. Verona), Renato Simoni (1875-1952, b.

Verona)—Adami’s 3rd libretto for Puccini, Simoni’s 1st • Music by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924, b. Lucca, Tuscany)—his 12th and final opera • Based on an 1801 adaptation by German playwright Friedrich Schiller—Turandot,

Prinzessin von China [Turandot, Princess of China]—of a 1762 century comic play—Turandot—by Italian dramatist Carlo Gozzi

• Sung in Italian with English translations projected above the stage • Running time about 2.5 hours

2 AND WATCH OUT FOR T HOSE FINGE RNAILS: Lis e Lin dstr om as t he t it l e prin ces s in a pr oducti on of

Turand ot by Florida Gra nd O pera, 2010.

THE STORY (Adapted from The Opera Goer’s Complete Guide, by Leo Melitz, 1926:) The Princess Turandot, a deeply serious woman with an aversion to men, is set against marrying. However, she has agreed to give her hand to whomever can solve three terribly tricky riddles. He who attempts the test, and does not pass, is to be put to death. Many have already lost their heads (quite literally!) as a result of the test. Prince Calaf, an exiled royal from a distant land, arrives on the scene. He manages to answer all three riddles successfully. But his generous nature refuses to take the prize on such terms, and he declares that he will follow the other suitors to the block if the Princess can pass a test of her own: guessing his name. If she does not find out the name, though, her hand is Calaf’s for marriage. His father and a loving slave-girl, Liù, come seeking him, and are tortured at the Princess’s command in an attempt to extract the youth’s name from them. Liù dies without Calaf’s name falling from her lips. Turandot ultimately does not discover the prince’s name, but is not forced to give her hand reluctantly. Calaf’s passionate wooing has warmed the princess’s emotions, and she surrenders to him with a smile on her lips. Asked his name in the opera’s finale, as the two join together to prepare for their nuptials, the Princess Turandot announces to the assembled people of Peking: “His name is Love.”

THE CAST OF CHARACT ERS (AND SINGERS) Turandot, the Princess of China

• American soprano Lise Lindstrom (May 10, 14, 17)

• Canadian soprano Othalie Graham (May 16, 18) Calaf, the foreign prince who loves her

• South Korean tenor Rudy Park (May 10, 14, 17) • Chilean tenor Giancarlo Monsalve (May 16, 18)

Liù, the slave girl in the employ of Calaf’s father • Italian soprano Donata D’Annunzio Lombardi

HI GH FASHIO N: Turand ot ’s ext ravagant headdr es s

enca ses a mind closed to t he pr os pect of lov e. Ima ge from th e

origi nal cover of the publ i shed score for Tur and ot.

3

The production at the Detroit Opera House will feature the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra and Chorus, led by Italian conductor Valerio Galli, and staging by American director Garnett Bruce. The performance will also include the young singers of the Michigan Opera Theatre Children’s Chorus, who recently took all the roles in an opera of their own, Brundibár (March 16, 2014). BEFORE A HAPPY ENDING,

THE COMPOSER’S SAD EN D The dramatic story of Puccini’s death before he could write the conclusion to Turandot of which he dreamt; how the opera’s final scenes were later completed by the composer Franco Alfano; and who, in the end, has the rightful claim to this strange and wonderful opera…

Turandot is a woman beyond reach. Almost a figure of pure legend and not a fleshly being, the title princess is not heard in the whole of Puccini’s first act, only seen, from atop a distant balcony, forbidding. She is “di gel cinta”—enclosed in ice—as the ardent slave girl Liù (Turandot’s opposite) admonishes her. Behind that ice is a star-strewn cloak and silver-embroidered veil, and, as she is usually presented onstage, an out-to-there headdress that seems to tell any admiring onlookers, “My hairdo, like my heart, is surrounded by such intricate fortifications that you may never access

it—best not to try.” And that heart can only be won, according to Adami and Simoni’s libretto, by the solving of three impenetrable riddles. She declares five times throughout the opera: “Nessun m'avrà!”—None shall ever possess me! Calaf ultimately does solve the riddles and win his royal bride. But for Puccini, her vow held true. He never did succeed in possessing her, in capturing the conclusion of Turandot to fit what he dreamed it could be. The ultimate riddle of her story—how Turandot would renounce her lifelong vow of chastity, how a frosted heart would somehow thaw and begin to glow with amorous love—proved torturous for the composer. Puccini knew it must be enormous, almost the apotheosis of all his life’s work, a corpus so purely devoted to love and its transfigurations. He knew that the love of Turandot “must engulf the whole stage in a great orchestral peroration.” In another letter to his librettists, he wrote that this love should “burst out…shamelessly, violently, excessively, like a bomb exploding.” But as he painfully worked, ill health consumed him, and his own heart burst

THE E M BATT LE D M ASTE R: Puccini i n his latter year s.

4

before he could make Turandot’s do likewise. The great composer died in his 65th year in 1924, having composed no further than just before that climactic duet. At the opera’s première in 1926 at La Scala, the conductor Arturo Toscanini lowered his baton at that point, turned to the audience, and spoke the words, “Here ends the opera left uncompleted by the Master, for at this point the Master died.” No more music was heard in the house that night. But on all subsequent performances, Toscanini would finish the work with added music to bring the fairy tale to its happy ending, the same that we will hear from Michigan Opera Theatre. It was commissioned from the composer Franco Alfano, who paid close attention to the sketches left by Puccini, which were not in all cases thorough. (One note by Puccini, in the margins of the libretto text for the duet, read merely, “Find here the characteristic, lovely, unusual melody.”) Alfano dispatched his dubious task with diligence and fidelity, if not real inspiration. Puccini had dreamed of an “explosion,” a gushing torrent of melted ice from the proud woman’s heart. Alfano gives us a drip-drip, all rather too quiet, so that we scarcely notice the transformation. Is it right to perform the opera as such, and call it Puccini’s Turandot, when the composer did not anticipate that someone else would finish it for him, and authorized no one to do so? It is a question of ownership. To whom, ultimately, does Turandot belong? To Puccini, the fallen master; his librettists, whose words, approved by Puccini, close the opera; the unfortunate Alfano; the enterprising Toscanini? Or does it belong, perhaps, to someone else? Puccini did not write for his critics or fellow composers, who, perhaps jealously, called his style sentimental or old-fashioned. He wrote for his public—music to bypass even the mind in its mad dash to the audience’s heart. When he was searching for a libretto idea, just before he and his librettists hit upon Turandot, he wrote to them of his need to find “something that will make the world weep.” Yes, it is clear now, on these glorious days of May, as the impassioned strains of “Nessun dorma” drift outside to greet the buds of spring, and love is in the air along with the scent of imagined lotuses. Turandot is ours, the last offering of a composer who wrote for the people. However the music ends, we cherish it as the composer’s final gift, and tear open its jade-colored wrappings with eagerness and joy. Tonight, Calaf will strive mightily to claim the heart of his chosen princess. She will cry, with equal thunder, that she belongs to no one. Little they know! Turandot already belongs to us. Tonight she is not only Princess of Peking, but Queen of Detroit. (But only temporarily, don’t worry, Aretha.)

PI NCH COM PO SER : Fran co Alfan o (1875- 195 4, t his

ph otogra ph ca . 1919) , wh o would fini sh T urand ot a ft er

Puccini ’ s deat h.

5

LISTEN TO “LISTEN ” The first piece to appear in Turandot that may be considered an “aria”—an extended passage for a soloist, with a musical and emotional quality of its own separate from the surrounding action—is “Signore, ascolta” [Sir, listen]. It is sung by the slave girl Liù, a supporting character. She is in love with Calaf, and serves his father Timur, the dethroned King of Tartary (formerly, a region of Northern and Central Asia). Calaf announces his intentions to try the test of the riddles, thereby risking his life to win Turandot’s hand in marriage. Liù—ever devoted, ever full of affection—implores him not to make the dangerous attempt. The music Puccini writes for her is unlike that which he writes for fearsome Turandot—it is warm music, and tender, lyrical and lilting and dripping with emotion, delicate rather than declamatory. What also makes the music unique is its authentic Chinese influence. Puccini found the base tune for it in a music box he came across, the original Chinese song being called “Sian chok.” It is written entirely in the pentatonic scale—a mode that contains five notes per octave, and is commonly used in East Asian music. You may access the pentatonic scale by playing only the black keys on the piano. What sort of feeling does playing only those notes give to the music? What do you think inspires Liù’s plea—her care for King Timur, her concern for her own survival, or, more secretly, her love for (and envious feelings surrounding) Calaf? As you watch a performance of this aria by American soprano Leona Mitchell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDMEmYuDmFE—Metropolitan Opera, 1988), follow the words and translation below, and think about the musical and dramatic qualities of the piece. What, to your mind, has made it such a famous and enduring aria for the soprano voice? LIÙ Signore, ascolta! Deh! signore, ascolta! Liù non regge più! Si spezza il cuore! Ahimè, quanto cammino col tuo nome nell'anima, col nome tuo sulle labbra! Ma se il tuo destino, doman, sarà deciso, noi morrem sulla strada dell'esilio. Ei perderà suo figlio... io l'ombra d'un sorriso! Liù non regge più! ha pietà!

LIÙ Sir, listen! Oh, sir, listen! Liù can take no more! Her heart is breaking! Ah, how long I’ve walked with your name in my soul, with your name on my lips! But if your destiny will be decided tomorrow, we will die on the path of exile. He will lose his son… and I the shadow of a smile! Liù can take no more! Take pity!

LI STE N U P, B UDDY BOY : Leon a Mitch el l as Liù sing s h er

heart out to stu bborn Pri nce Calaf .

Michigan Opera Theatre Communications Department For group tickets, contact Kim Gray at kimg@motopera.org

Guide written and prepared by Michael Yashinsky, yashinsky@post.harvard.edu