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Organization

Singer

Soprano

Anda-Louise Bogza

Turandot

Tenor

Michal Lehotský

Calaf

Efe Kislali

Simona Procházková

Liù

Pavla Vykopalová

Bass

Jiří Sulženko

Timur

Oleg Korotkov

Baritone

Jiří Brückler

Ping

Jiří Hájek

Tomáš Kořínek

Pang

Richard Samek

Martin Šrejma

Pong

Václav Sibera

Miloš Horák

A Mandarin

Roman Vocel

Lubomír Havlák

The Prince of Persia

Conductor

Enrico Dovico

Richard Hein

Martin Leginus

Stage director

Václav Věžník

Costume designer

Josef Jelínek

Set designer

Ladislav Vychodil

State Opera

Others

State Opera Chorus

Orchestra

State Opera Orchestra

Prague

Czech Republic

Státní Opera Praha (The State Opera)

Turandot Puccini

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Approved

Giacomo Puccini’s final opera, Turandot, may be deemed to be the “last of the Mohicans” of the Golden Age of Italian Romantic opera. The greatest of Verdi’s heirs, the composer, however, did not get bogged down in this tradition, but went on to boldly develop and enrich it with the flavours of the new artistic styles that emerged in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. Consequently, his Turandot, written between and 1921 and 1924, does not feature many Romantic traits.

Puccini based the opera on the eponymous commedia dell’arte play by Carlo Gozzi, an author much admired by the early 20th-century avant-garde artists. The subject hails from Persia or Mongolia, whose cultures were mainly marvelled at by votaries of the decorative style, while the libretto’s story is set in medieval Beijing and foregrounds fairy-tale, or better said mythological, elements, favoured by the Symbolists. The theme of passionate love, essential for Romantic opera, is veiled in mysterious motifs of ice, fire, moon, while an erotic flame enigmatically blazes along with intense, unrelenting hatred, which we would rather expect to be present in works inspired by decadence or psychoanalysis.

Yet all that which, notwithstanding its modernism, gives Turandot the Romantic opera hallmark is Puccini’s musical idiom, which too encompasses plenty of “eccentric” facets – ranging from Oriental paraphrases, through a brutal orchestral sound, dissonant harmonies to wildly complex chorus and ensemble scenes – but what prevails is Puccini’s masterful melodic invention in the spirit of the legacy of his great Italian opera predecessors, yet utterly original – by and large, Puccinian.

English

Turandot by Puccini, From (2016/2016), Directed by Václav Věžník,, Conductor Enrico Dovico, Richard Hein, Martin Leginus, Státní Opera Praha (The State Opera), Prague, Czech Republic

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