Organization

Singer

Soprano

Jee Hye Han

Turandot

Helen Todd

Tenor

Raúl Melo

Calaf

John Hudson

Eudora Brown

Liù

Yuanming Song

Louise Kwong

Bass

Freddie Tong

Timur

Baritone

Sammy Chien

Ping

Chen Yong

Pong

Christopher Leung

Pang

Frankie Liu

The Emperor Altoum

Isaac Droscha

A Mandarin

Pong Chung Lam

Conductor

Lio Kuokman

Stage director

Lo Kingman

Set designer

Ricky Chan

Costume designer

Mandy Tam

Repetiteur

Felix Suen

Ronald Cheung

Musica Viva Singers

italià

Hong Kong

Hong Kong SAR China

City Hall

Turandot Puccini

Public

xinès

anglès

Approved

Puccini’s Unfinished Masterpiece
Puccini began the composition of his last opera, Turandot, early in 1921. The subject had been suggested to him by Renato Simoni, a dramatist, who collaborated with Guiseppe Adami in writing the libretto, based on a play by Carlo Gozzi.

Puccini approached the subject through Friedrich Schiller’s romanticized version of Gozzi’s play, in which the fable of the Princess Turandot is treated in a purely artificial manner. Puccini insisted on the subject being further humanized by the introduction of Liu, the slave-girl who sacrifices herself to save Prince Calaf. The very human and pathetic figure of Liu renders the cruelty of the fable hardly bearable by making it seem real.

Puccini died in November 1924, before the score was completed. He hoped to make the final duet the finest thing he had ever composed. Whether he could have fulfilled his ambition is a matter for conjecture. As it is, the opera was completed by a younger composer, Franco Alfano, based on 36 pages of musical sketches and annotations left by Puccini. Alfano managed to achieve his task in a most admirable way, not only with great craftsmanship, but also with extreme respect and loyalty towards Puccini’s intentions. The work was first performed at La Scala, Milan, on 25 May 1926, under the direction of Toscanini, who ended that first performance at the point where Puccini laid down his pen.

In 2001, the House of Ricordi, Puccini’s publisher, commissioned a new ending from the distinguished contemporary composer Luciano Berio who took a rather different approach. He made use of the themes left by Puccini but introduced more subtle harmonic shifts, tonal ambiguities and exotic scoring that mirror the emotional turmoil of the protagonists. He focused his effort on solving the problem of making Turandot’s transformation from an ice-cold princess into a warm loving woman believable by inserting an orchestral interlude depicting this psychological change. This was the problem with which Puccini had been struggling in vain during the final years of his life. Berio ended the opera quietly and mysteriously at the breaking of a new dawn.

The legend of the three riddles, which the protagonist must solve to save his life, is widespread. The legend has an obvious theatrical effectiveness, which, coupled with the splendor of the Chinese setting, makes the central episode of Turandot one of Puccini’s most successful dramatic strokes, especially as he treated the whole scene with the greatest possible economy as a solemn ritual, beneath whose outward formality strong passions seethe.

Puccini obtained his exotic effects by resorting to bitonality – the simultaneous use of different keys – as in the first pages of the score, and by composing some of the most characteristic tunes on a five-note (pentatonic) scale and in short rhythmical phrases. In addition, he uses, for Chinese colouring, a large number of percussion instruments, gongs, bells, wooden blocks, and so on.

For Turandot herself Puccini wrote music which successfully portrays her ice-cold heartlessness. Although the amount of music she has to sing is not great, the part is extremely exacting on account of the high tessitura of the music, often unsupported by any accompaniment. The chorus has a more important part to play than in any other opera of Puccini’s. This feature and the spectacular nature of the work make Turandot a true Grand opera, the only one of Puccini’s compositions to which the term can properly be applied.

English

Turandot by Puccini, De (2014/2014), Dirigit per Lo Kingman,, Director musical Lio Kuokman, City Hall, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR China

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