Giacomo Puccini: Turandot

Turandot is famed for “Nessun dorma”, the tenor aria which became a global hit thanks to Luciano Pavarotti. The opera itself is more problematic, a gruesome fairy tale of a Chinese princess who has her suitors beheaded if they fail to answer her three riddles correctly. Calaf solves them all, but then sets his own “escape clause” challenge…

The writing for chorus is fantastic, the mass treated like a protagonist, baying for further bloodshed. Puccini died before he composed the final duet and the opera was completed by Franco Alfano. At the premiere on 25th April 1926 at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, conductor Arturo Toscanini put down his baton after the death of the slave girl Liù and announced to the audience, “Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died.” Some modern directors follow suit and, given Alfano’s duet can be a bit of a scream-fest between two unlikeable characters, can we blame them?!