Puccini's Turandot

Its been a year since i last done this blog. Now its time to revive it.

For the head start, I will discuss about Turandot, an opera composed by one of the greatest Opera composer Giacomo Puccini. My journey with Puccini's music started when I bought a DVD (produced by BBC) about the composer's life, from this DVD learned quite a lot of his works, for example, Manon Lescaut, Madam Butterfly and Tosca.

Among all his operas, Turandot and his later operas (Madam Butterfly) strikes me the most. Puccini compositional style took on a new direction due to the influences by Debussy and Schoenberg. If you happen to listen to Madam Butterfly, you could hear lots of elements of whole tone scales which creates a typical Debussy's impressionist effect. The impressionist effect did not stop in Madam Butterfly, it occurs even in Turandot, starting of act 3 the section before the very famous "Nessun Dorma". During that section, it started with a night scene, Puccini made used of the whole tone scale (descending and ascending 3rds) at the clarinet part to give a impressionistic and enhanced night settings.

The premiere of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire (1912) in Italy in the early part of the 20th century made a great impact on Puccini's perspective in musical style of Atonal Music. Due to this influcence, Puccini attempted to put in atonal elements into the new opera which he was working on. The effect of atonal elements can be found at the very beginning of Turandot by the tutti orchestra and also the mandarino's Part "Popolo Di Pekino" (People of Pekin), the atonal elements reoccurs through out Act 1.

Puccini has never been to china but he managed to compose many motifs which sounds very china and also integrated the famous song of the Lily Flowers "Moh Li Hua" into the opera. All these are due to the chinese music box which his friend brought back from china. Puccini studied the tune of the music box (Moh Li Hua) and picked up the style of composing chinese music.

I believe that Nessum Dorma is the most famous tune in Turandot (Act 3). However a lot of people which I come across said that Nessun Dorma is a "love song". Here I would like to explain and give a little insight about Nessun Dorma, hopefully can give a clearer picture about the famous Tenor Aria. Bascially, at the start of Act 3 of Turandot, people in pekin were ordered not to sleep until they find out the name of young man (Calaf) who had answered all 3 questions posted by Turandot, so "Nessun Dorma" means "No one shall sleep". The tenor aria is (to me) a aria of pride, as calaf sings that "No One Shall Know My Name", "At the daybreak, I shall win, I shall win".

The most interesting part of this famous opera lies at the final part. While Puccini was composing till the duet of liu and calaf, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, he stop working on the work and concentrated in recapulating his disease, unfortunately Puccini died after going through an experimental radiation therapy treatment in brussel, leaving the work unfinished. Puccini had assignment Riccardo Zandonai to complete turandot but was rejected by his son Tonio Puccini. Some italian opera composers like Pietro Masgcani (composer of "Cavalleria Rustricana") and Vincenzo Tammasini attempted to complete turandot but were also rejected. Finally, Franco Alfrano was chosen to complete the opera, Alfrano's version is the one that is much performed today, however there are critics who criticise Alfrano's ending to be a "Cheap work". Up to today, there are composers who stepped out to composer their own version of Turandot's ending, one of them was the famous Luciano Berio. Trurandot (Alfrano's Ending) was premiered on Sunday April 26, 1926 at La Scala, Milan under the baton of Arturo Toscanini.