Giacomo Puccini, "Turandot" by the Royal Opera House in Tokyo 2024.
1)
Like Verdi's Aida, Puccini's last production, Turandot is famous for its spectacle, entertainment value, and musicality. This production, directed by Andrei Servan, premiered in 1984 and was performed successfully in Japan in 1986.
The beautiful stage set-up, with its staircase-like corridors, the Emperor seated on a sumptuous throne, and the richly shaded lighting that expresses the richness of imagination fascinated the audience.
2)
The production has been a favourite at the Royal Opera House for 40 years, during which time it has been upgraded several times.
The attention to detail from the beginning has been supplemented by fresh, vibrant colours, and choreography has become even faster and more impactful. Perhaps the most striking change is that the curtains are raised before the opera opens, with a cascade of crimson streamers.
Surprisingly, Spring 2023 was the first time Pappano had ever wielded Turandot in the orchestra pit, and even then, he was acclaimed as 'better than any conductor'.
3)
In Japan, Sondra Radvanovsky, whose powerful voice is ideally suited to the role of Princess Turandot, Brian Jade, is taking the world by storm with his performance of the world's most famous aria, "No One Shall Sleep" as Karaf.
Massa is already recognised locally as "an absolute master of the role of Liù". The success of the revival in Japan after 38 years is guaranteed.
4)
Act 1.
The Chinese Princess Turandot says: "He who courts me must solve three riddles. He who tries and fails to solve them must die", she declares.
Today, too, the execution of a Persian prince who recently failed to solve the riddles is about to occur. In the crowd gathered in the square, an old blind man, led by a servant girl, falls, and a young man helps him to his feet.
5)
The older man is Timur, the former king of Dattan, and the young man is his son, Khalaf, who had been separated. While the three and their servant Rieu rejoice in their reunion, the Prince of Persia is brought to the square.
The executioner enters, and Princess Turandot arrives to confirm the Prince's death. As soon as he sees Princess Turandot, Calaf is mesmerised by her beauty. Without hearing the three ministers, Pin, Pon, Pan, or Timur and Liu, stop him, Calaf rings the gong, a signal to try to solve the riddle.
6)
Act 2.
The three ministers—Pin, Pon, and Pan—count the number of heads cut off since the riddle of Princess Turandot began and lament the endless executions; all three wish to return to their respective beautiful homelands.
A signal is given to solve the riddle, and the wise men arrive with a scroll containing the answer to the sealed riddle. Khalaf is brought before Emperor Artum on his throne, Turandot's father.
As Khalaf has not revealed his name, the Emperor tells this 'unnamed Prince how he must die if he fails to answer and persuades him to stop his reckless attempts and walk away, not wanting any more deaths. However, Khalaf's resolve does not change.
7)
Princess Turandot appears on the stage. She tells why she has refused men's courtship by putting forth such a riddle. Her ancestor, Princess Loh Ling, was tricked by a foreign man and died in humiliation.
As her reincarnation, she decided that she would never belong to anyone. It is my only concession to give out the mystery, she said. Princess Turandot tells Calaf that all that has resulted so far has been death and even implies his death, but Calaf insists that he will solve the riddle.
8)
Calaf then successfully answers the three riddles that Princess Turandot gives him.
When the riddles are solved, Princess Turandot pleads with her father, Emperor Artum, that she does not want to marry, but he urges his daughter to keep her promise.
Not wanting the Princess to marry him unwillingly, Calaf proposes that he present her with a riddle. If she can know her name by dawn, then he will die.
9)
Act 3.
In Peking, Princess Turandot says: "Do not sleep until you know the name of your suitor. If you don't know, I will execute you all".
In response, Calaf confidently waits for dawn to break, 'At dawn, I shall triumph'. The three ministers—Pin, Pon, and Pan—plead with him to withdraw his courtship of the Princess, offering him beautiful women and treasures, but Calaf refuses.
The terrified crowd is outraged, and threats are made against him. In the meantime, Timur and Liu, who had been seen with Khalaf the day before, were captured. They were thought to know his name.
10)
Princess Turandot orders Liu to be tortured until he reveals his name. Liu refuses to reveal his name and takes her own life, saying that she can withstand torture because of love.
The crowd and Timur mourn her death and leave. The remaining Princess Turandot and the 'unnamed prince' face each other alone. Eventually, the Prince kisses the Princess.
As love for him grows in Princess Turandot's heart, the Prince tells her that his name is Calaf.
'I know your name', the Princess calls the people back.
Turandot and Calaf advance before the Emperor's throne. The Princess declares, "His name is 'Love'". The crowd praises the triumph of love and chants Long live the Emperor.
11)
Not just a spectacle:
The Royal Opera is proud of its dramatic Turandot.
Based on the fable of the Ice Princess, whose destiny appears before her suitor, who must solve a riddle and kill her if she does not, Turandot, set in China in the time of legend, is an opera that is enjoyed as much for its spectacle as Aida.
Indeed, a sense of grandeur is essential to this opera. Nevertheless, the narrative appeal of the drama has made André Servan's production of Turandot so popular with the Royal Opera House over the past 40 years.
12)
Serban's production is a dramatic performance that highlights the characters and incorporates rich colour and dance. And in spring 2023, the freshness and spectacularity of the production will be further upgraded!
The singers' every move has been refined to convey the characters' emotions, and the dancers' choreography incorporates movements from tai chi and Chinese martial arts, which has a more profound effect on the development of the drama.
With every detail of the costumes and equipment evoking traditional China, Turandot is a masterpiece of the Royal Opera House's production.
13)
The riddle of the three riddles:
The riddle-solving scene in Turandot is the drama's climax, but the answers to the riddles differ between Carlo Gozzi's original play and Puccini's opera.
Puccini's opera is 'Hope', 'Blood' and 'Turandot', while Gozzi's play is 'The Sun', 'The Year' and 'The Lion of Adria'.
As Gozzi was from the Venetian aristocracy, it is thought that he may have answered the third riddle by using the Adriatic lion, the coat of arms of the Venetian Republic.
14)
The Pin, Pon, and Pan riddle:
Pin, Pon, and Pan are the three characters who play the "comic part" in Turandot by Liccardo Cucini.
The court ministers lament that Princess Turandot's "riddles" cause casualties.
While Gozzi's original story had four comical characters with masks, Puccini chose three roles in the traditional Italian style of commedia dell'arte: the names of the three are associated in Japan with the old TV programme "Let's Play with Mama!"
"Pin, Pon, and Pan" is often associated with the show, but the connection is unclear. However, the actual singing starts in the order of Pin, Pon, and Pan. In this way, the order of Pin, Pan, and Pon, when called in the opera, is more riddle-like.
15)
Is Liu Puccini's ideal woman?:
Puccini frequently brought his ideal woman to life in his operas. Mimi, who breaks up with her lover so as not to disturb him (La Bohème), the dainty and delicate Butterfly (Madame Butterfly), followed by Liu in Turandot, who commits suicide for the sake of her loved one.
As for Rieu, she is modelled after Doria, a woman who was Puccini's chambermaid. Doria committed suicide when Madame Puccini suspected her of being in love with her husband.
Add info)
Royal Opera 2024 Japan tour of Turandot: the charms of Turandot.
https://www.nbs.or.jp/webmagazine/articles/opera/20240320-01.html
A)
The Royal Opera's 2024 Japan tour of Turandot: the key to its charms.
Turandot, Puccini's last work, is one of the most popular of all his operas. What is the appeal of this work?:
If you ask, some say it is the famous aria 'No one should sleep', others say they cannot forget the grandeur of the stage performance they once saw, or that the sight of Liu dying for love is unforgettable without tears. ..... Various points will be raised.
Here, we will try to discover the attraction's source, the "secret of the attraction."
B)
Puccini wanted to surpass Wagner's operas!:
This opera is unique among Puccini's operas," said Antonio Pappano, who will conduct Turandot for the first time at the Royal Opera House in the spring of 2023 at a talk event held before the production.
It was different because it was the first time the chorus had been used so seriously. He said this was because Puccini wanted to complete something more than a grand opera comparable to Wagner's Götterdämmerung. Pappano looks at Puccini's grand vision from the perspective of his surviving works.
C)
'Puccini was listening to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, composed two years earlier, to Bartók's experimental experiments, to the music of Schoenberg, Webern and Debussy. They were aware that each of these compositions was going in a different direction.
It was indeed a time when music and art were richly produced and blossomed one after another. He was fully aware of the times in which he lived. And we must not forget Richard Strauss.
Puccini saw Strauss's Salome and was fascinated by it. In Turandot, you can hear echoes of all these composers. This is particularly evident here and there in the orchestration. The savage savagery of The Rite of Spring, the seductive decadence of Salome, the earthy rhythms of Stravinsky and Bartók.
You may have been dazzled by the stage grandeur of Turandot, but you may not have realised this grand ambition that Puccini had in mind.
D)
Puccini's anguish at not being used to happy endings:
Without completing his glorious vision, Puccini wrote the part where Liu died and then died. The rest of the opera was written from the remaining sketches and was performed for the first time.
Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the supplemental writing, Pappano's view that 'Puccini was not accustomed to happy endings' is evident from the interview.
E)
I believe Puccini would write beyond that: three mysteries are explained, and there is supposedly a happy ending, but the heart of a princess with a tightly closed mind is not so easily opened.
Nor is it possible for her to immediately fall deeply in love with the Prince. While I was searching for a contradiction-free love duet that would resolve these issues, his cancer worsened, and he was unable to write beyond that point. In other words, he was not unwilling to write, I think.
Puccini was well aware that the musical world around him was changing dramatically at the time, and he was also aware of Strauss and Bartók.
Amidst all this, he sang "I love you!" in high spirits. Still, instead, he was looking for a love duet like the one in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, with a psychological description and a more concrete and time-consuming explanation of why.
Listening to this idea of Pappano's, one would expect to hear the Maestro's hidden thoughts in the scene's music in Act III, supplemented after Liu's death.
F)
The key to the production is Pin, Pon, and Pan?!:
Following conductor Pappano's insight into the work of Turandot and composer Puccini, here are some words from the re-enactment director and choreographer on the appeal of the Royal Opera's Turandot and the actual stage production.
Choreographer Kate Flatt says that when she worked with director Andrei Servan in 1984, when the production premiered, she studied Tai Chi to create an image of ancient China. 'It gave me an idea for the slow movements. However, the dance was not heavily based on the Chinese style, but rather on the music, intonation, and meaning of the words."
G)
In an interview in 1987, the pair also said that Servan "is the one who brings trust, open-mindedness and frankness to Turandot. He said that Turandot has no love, only surrender, give in or not".
And Serban was very much attracted to the idea of commedia dell'arte. In Turandot, this is carried out by the three ministers, Pin, Pon, and Pan. They serve the Emperor and are always together.
They are mainly comical but can also be optimistic and sad for their homeland. Their slightly complex and realistic nature is reflected not only in their words but also in their music.
Servan knew that it was important enough to determine the success or failure of the performance, depending on how the director handled it!
