Turandot was Giacomo Puccini's last compositional adventure. Started in 1921, the effort would take up 1924, when he dies 29 of November, leaving sketches and many doubts about the text and music at the end of the last two scenes that Franco Alfano would conclude. The libretto was inspired by the theatrical fable Turandotte (1762) by the Venetian count Carlo Gozzi. Very transformed into final intentions - it is a work with comic overtones -, Puccini rescues from it the homage to Commedia dell'Arte in the figures of the three ministers and Emperor Altoum. Understood in good order by the composer as an opera in one long act, the division into three never satisfied its creator, resigned, however, to accepting the custom of presenting it in three sections separated by curtain fall. Its modernity in the 20th century transcends “ethnographic” musical contributions (truly chinese music reworked), bitonality notes, subtlety in the orchestration and search for new timbrals, that denote Puccini's eternal youth to his venerable senescence.
Turandot rounds off Sir Mark Elder's first opera season as musical director of Les Arts, who has directed Puccini's posthumous work in great temples such as Covent Garden or the Paris Opera. For the fearsome role of the Chinese princess, reserved for dramatic and high-quality voices, features the great Russian artist Ekaterina Semenchuck, very loved at Les Arts, where she has played Azucena, Lady Macbeth or Preziosilla. Prince Calaf, played by American tenor Gregory Kunde, will try to conquer her icy heart., acclaimed in Valencia in titles such as Otello or Peter Grimes. The futuristic production conceived by Àlex Ollé for the Tokyo Opera avoids the recurring exotic setting and delves into the traumas of the past that mark the destiny of the protagonists..
Giacomo Puccini 1858-1924
Lyrical drama in three acts
Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simonia based on the work of the same name by Carlo Gozzi
Premiere 25 April 1926
La Scala Theatre, Milan
