Turandot: synopsis, roles, arias and history of the unfinished score

Turandot sets a cold princess and a deadly riddle test against a slave girl’s loyalty, and it is a score that another composer had to finish. It is one of the guides in the operas section.

At a glance

Giacomo Puccini, an Italian opera composer, lived from 1858 to 1924³. The libretto is Italian, by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, and is based on Carlo Gozzi’s play Turandot¹. Turandot lasts approximately 2 hours 55 minutes, including two intervals². The setting is Peking, in legendary times⁴, and the story follows the cold-hearted Princess of Peking, Turandot, and the young Prince of Tartary, Calaf, who falls in love with her at first sight⁵.

Composition history: how Turandot was written and finished

Puccini began working on Turandot in March 1920, after meeting the librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni¹. It was his twelfth and final opera². Carlo Gozzi wrote the source play in 1762, and Friedrich Schiller adapted it into another play in 1801¹. The beginnings of the story can likely be found in Haft Peykar¹, and in 1722 François Pétis de la Croix published his Les Mille et un jours¹.

Puccini wanted Chinese color in the music. Baron Edoardo Fassini-Camossi, the former Italian diplomat to China, gave him a music box that played four Chinese melodies¹, and Puccini incorporated three of these melodies into his opera¹. Eight of the themes from Turandot appear to be based on traditional Chinese music and anthems¹. It was his most ambitious opera, combining exoticism, Chinese musical elements and a grand orchestral style².

The work proved challenging, particularly the development of the title character and the love story². By March 1924 Puccini had completed the opera up to the final duet¹. While working on it, he was diagnosed with throat cancer², and he died of a heart attack on 29 November 1924¹. The first two of the three acts were fully composed, including the orchestration¹. He left behind 36 pages of sketches on 23 sheets for the end of the opera¹.

Completion by Alfano

Toscanini recommended that Riccardo Zandonai be engaged to finish the opera, and Puccini’s son Tonio objected¹. Tito Ricordi II decided on Franco Alfano because his opera La leggenda di Sakùntala resembled Turandot in its setting and heavy orchestration¹. After the severe criticisms by Ricordi and the conductor Arturo Toscanini, Alfano was forced to write a second, strictly censored version of the ending¹. About three minutes of this version were cut for performance by Toscanini, and the shortened version is usually performed today¹.

Premiere and later endings

Turandot premiered at La Scala in Milan on 25 April 1926, a year and five months after Puccini’s death¹. Puccini had fully orchestrated act three up until Liù’s death and funeral cortege¹. At the premiere Toscanini turned to the audience and announced that the Maestro had laid down his pen¹. The second and subsequent performances of the 1926 La Scala season included Alfano’s ending¹. Tenors Miguel Fleta and Franco Lo Giudice alternated in the role of Prince Calaf¹.

Newer completions have followed. In 2001 Luciano Berio made a new completion sanctioned by Casa Ricordi and the Puccini estate¹. In late 2007 the Chinese composer Hao Weiya made another completion before the opening of the National Centre for the Performing Arts¹. In 2024 Washington National Opera premiered a newly commissioned ending by composer Christopher Tin and librettist Susan Soon He Stanton¹, Opera Delaware premiered a completion by composer Derrick Wang¹, and Daniela Kerck made another version for the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden¹.

Roles and voice types

Arturo Toscanini conducted the premiere¹. Turandot is the cold and ruthless princess of China who has vowed never to marry². Liù is a former slave who has cared for Timur since their exile².

Synopsis

Act 1

The opera opens at the walls of the Imperial City, the great Violet City⁴. The Prince of Persia has just failed to answer the riddles and is sentenced to be beheaded when the moon rises⁵. Heads roll as suitor after suitor is unable to pass the test⁷. A young man comes to help a blind old man and recognizes him as the exiled King Timur of Tartary². He reveals himself as Timur’s son Calaf, who was separated from his father after the loss of their kingdom². Timur tells his son that, of all his servants, only Liù has remained faithful to him¹. The young Prince is overjoyed at seeing Timur alive, but urges him not to speak his name¹.

The crowd calls upon Turandot to grant mercy, but she refuses⁴. Overcome by her beauty, Calaf decides to challenge for her hand himself⁶. Despite the warnings of the ministers Ping, Pong and Pang, he vows to win Turandot². Liù, who is secretly in love with him, joins his father in the warnings⁵, and she implores him to leave with her and Timur in Signore, ascolta². Calaf tries to console her with Non piangere, Liù but remains determined². He strikes the gong that signals his challenge⁴.

Act 2

Ping, Pang and Pong discuss the preparations for what will be either a wedding or a funeral⁴. Weary of planning funerals for executed princes, they long to plan a wedding⁶. The Emperor Altoum sits on his grand throne in his palace¹, and the Emperor asks Calaf to withdraw; Calaf declares he is determined to go forward with his attempt⁶.

Turandot enters and explains in In questa reggia that her ancestress of millennia past, Princess Lo-u-Ling, reigned over her kingdom¹. Lo-u-Ling was raped and murdered by Tartar invaders⁴, and Turandot sees herself as her reincarnation and has therefore vowed that no one will possess her². The riddles are her one concession². Death shall be the price of even attempting to gain her hand⁶.

Calaf answers each of the three riddles correctly: hope, blood and Turandot⁶. Turandot is furious when Calaf solves it⁴. She pleads with her father not to force her to accept this man, but the Emperor holds her to the bargain⁶. Calaf makes a counter-offer: if she can discover his name before daybreak, he will consent to die^4,6.

Act 3

The Prince waits for dawn and anticipates his victory¹, while the decree rings out that none shall sleep in Peking that night¹. Soldiers drag in Timur and Liù for questioning, declaring they were seen talking to the stranger⁶. Liù steps forward, claiming that she alone knows the prince’s name⁴. The slave girl refuses to yield under torture, and when asked what gives her such strength, she replies that it is love⁴.

Liù seizes a dagger from a soldier’s belt and stabs herself¹. Timur curses those who have brought about her death⁴. When Timur warns that the gods will be offended by Liù’s death, the crowd becomes subdued, very afraid and ashamed¹. Puccini’s own score runs up to this point, Liù’s death and funeral cortege¹.

Calaf and Turandot are left alone, and Calaf accuses Turandot of inhumanity². He tears off her veil and kisses her⁴. Overwhelmed by new feelings, Turandot confesses that she is weeping her first tears⁷. Calaf tells her his name and places himself in her power². Turandot summons the Emperor and the people, and proudly declares that she now knows the name of the foreigner².

The famous arias

Nessun dorma is sung by Calaf in Act III and is one of the opera’s most famous arias². Its title translates to None shall sleep, referring to the decree that no one in the city can sleep². The aria has long been a staple of operatic recitals¹.

Luciano Pavarotti helped popularize Nessun dorma in the 1990s, following his performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup². He sang it live with The Three Tenors in Los Angeles in 1994⁴, and The Three Tenors performed the aria at three subsequent World Cup Finals¹. The score gives the orchestra and chorus every opportunity to shine⁴.

Reception, standing and the China ban

Turandot is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire¹. Soon after its premiere in Milan, it spread to other cities¹. It is long recognized as the most tonally adventurous of Puccini’s operas¹, written when he found himself completely outside his normal genre of verismo¹.

Critics have found fault with the work: an inadequate buildup for Turandot’s change of heart, combined with an overly successful treatment of a secondary character¹, and nothing in the text of the final duet suggests that Calaf’s love for Turandot amounts to more than a physical obsession¹. The new ending by Berio is preferred by some critics for making a more satisfactory resolution of Turandot’s change of heart¹.

For many years the government of the People’s Republic of China forbade performance of Turandot because they said it portrayed China and the Chinese unfavourably¹. In the late 1990s they relented¹, and in September 1998 the opera was performed for eight nights as Turandot at the Forbidden City, with director Zhang Yimou as choreographer and Zubin Mehta as conductor¹.

Language and diction notes

The libretto is Italian, so the rules in Italian diction for singers apply throughout. For reading a text like this line by line, see how to read a libretto. Fuller synopses: English National Opera, Royal Ballet and Opera, Opera Colorado.

For another Puccini heroine, try Tosca or Madama Butterfly.