Don Giovanni König Kandaules Die Zauberflöte Turandot Die Liebe der Danae Roméo et Juliette La Donna del Lago Helmut Lachenmann Jedermann Daponte in Santa Fe Das weite Land Young Directors Joachim Schlömer Concerts 2002 The Unfinished

Giacomo Puccini
MASTERPIECE IN PROGRESS
The problem of the finale in Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot

Even though the future planning concept of the Salzburg Festival intends to focus on many works that until now were hardly ever or not performed here at all, Salzburg still remains the place where the central repertoire, in particular the great operatic works of the 19th century, can be experienced in exemplary new interpretations.

Particular attention will be given to the authentic musical edition of the works. The very first season is to have a signal effect with Puccini’s Turandot: the opera will be heard in an edition completed by Luciano Berio based on the original Puccini sketches.

Turandot was set to music several times

The foreword to the printed edition of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s essay The Strange Sufferings of a Theatre Director of 1818 promises the author’s extensive Comments on the Entire World of the Theatre, and deals specifically with Carlo Gozzi’s fairy-tale comedy Turandot. The piece was first performed in 1762 in Venice and became known to a small circle in Germany through Schiller’s adaptation of 1802. Hoffmann regarded it highly and regretted that Gozzi’s other “magnificent dramas, which contain stronger situations than many of the other highly acclaimed more recent tragedies, have not been equally successful, at least as opera libretti”. As early as 1809 a composer called Blumenröder, long forgotten, had tried to transpose Turandot to the opera stage. Even after Hoffmann some music-theatrical index cards by this name can be found gathering dust in the annals of opera history. However, not even a century after Hoffmann’s lament, when Ferruccio Busoni brought Count Gozzi’s Chinese fable to the stage in 1917 did the opera subject become widely known.

Only Puccini’s Turandot has secured a place in the international opera repertoire

Turandot did not become integrated into the international opera repertoire until 1924, after the world premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s dramma lirico, performed posthumously. However, the pain it caused the composer is already evident in E. T. A. Hoffmann. In one of his dialogues the “Grey One” speaks enthusiastically about a performance of Gozzi’s Turandot in Brescia, whereas the “Brown One” makes a highly demeaning comment, “Only the perfect artist will be able to understand the heroic element or rather the crazed anger of Turandot, without destroying the charm of her most marvellous femininity.”

Puccini failed to show the transformation of Princess Turandot from a murderous Amazon to a loving woman

This is precisely the problem that ultimately caused Puccini to fail: showing the transformation of the princess from a murderous Amazon to a loving woman. Of course this can be explained by his tragic life story. He died in November 1924 as a result of a laryngeal operation in Brussels and was thus unable to complete the finale of his opera. However, the correspondence between the composer and Giuseppe Adami, one of his two librettists, revealed already in 1920, at the beginning of work on Turandot, a degree of self-doubt that was unusual even for him. Mosco Carner’s psychoanalytical monograph of Puccini (the book was written in 1958 but a German edition was not published until 1996), intensifies many suspicions that the psychological constitution of the composer might also have been a reason for his failure.

Puccini loved the women in his operas most when he let them die

In 20th century opera only Puccini and Richard Strauss (and possibly also Leos Janácek) intoned the high song of the woman, but Puccini combined it with a sadistic component: he loved his female figures most of all when he let them die. For instance the figure of the slave Liù, who sacrifices herself for love, is Puccini’s own addition to the subject matter of Turandot, the incarnation of his image of woman. However it is undisputed that with the figure
of Minnie in La Fanciulla del West he was seeking a new way, which Princess Turandot was intended to crown with the melting of the ring of ice surrounding her. Nevertheless, since Franco Alfano’s long-winded completion of Puccini’s final sketches for the final love duet between Calaf and Turandot, no one has succeeded so far in making the miracle of her transformation musically plausible. If Luciano Berio were now to succeed, then not only Mosco Carner’s monograph would have to be (posthumously) rewritten.

Ulrich Schreiber

Giacomo Puccini
Turandot
Sung in Italian with German
and English supertitles

Grosses Festspielhaus

New production: 7 August 2002
10, 15, 18, 22, 26,
30 August 2002
Performances begin at 7 p.m.

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