Turandot
Dramma lirico in tre atti e cinque quadri. Finale: Deborah Burton SC 91, 1923/24, Finale 2022
With his unfinished fairy-tale opera Turandot Giacomo Puccini has left a couple of riddles to posterity. First of all the work, which had its premiere after Puccini’s death, lacks a complete ending. Furthermore, practical adjustments and corrections usually added by the composer in the course of a scenic production or after the work’s premiere, are missing, too. Thus Turandot has become a work, to which, in the course of time, many errors and inconsistencies have been added.
Carus now offers a modern edition of Turandot with a focus on aspects of practical performance: clearly organized performance material with a musical text free from traditional errors and inconsistencies, with added performance instructions (where necessary), and with consistent articulation and dynamics. This new edition has been created by the Italian conductor and musicologist Andreas Gies.
The Burton Finale: Puccini’s rediscovered dramatic vision?
This edition features the finale as completed by American musicologist and Puccini expert Deborah Burton in 2022 – the first to be based on newly discovered material by the composer. Burton gained access to previously unknown autograph sketches from a private collection, which were unavailable for Franco Alfano’s edition or later efforts. She was also able to draw on additional sketch material from the Puccini Archive in Torre del Lago.
Burton developed a systematic approach: she transcribed the sketches herself, compared them with existing transcriptions as well as with contemporary soures and reports. Her objective was to incorporate as much of Puccini’s autograph material as possible. Filling gaps in the sketches, she sought inspiration from comparable dramatic moments in Puccini’s earlier masterpieces as well as from the distinctive sonic palette of Turandot. Orchestrated by Jeff Atmajian, her version of the finale brings us much closer to the composer’s original vision.
The corresponding performance materials are available on hire.
Contents
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Composer
Giacomo Puccini
| 1858-1924Giacomo Puccini came from a dynasty of church musicians who worked in the Tuscan city of Lucca. His Messa a 4 con orchestra, premiered there in 1880, seemed to point him toward a career in the same direction, but directly after this, he went to Milan Conservatoire with the aim of becoming an opera composer. His only independent orchestral works were written there as student works – the Preludio sinfonico (1882) and Capriccio sinfonico (1883), as well as some of his 16 complete surviving songs for voice and piano (Canti), which he composed, with frequent references to his operas, almost throughout his career. He achieved a breakthrough as an opera composer with Manon Lescaut (1893); between 1893 and 1904 he composed La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly, which remain his most frequently-performed works today. In recent years there has been a growing realisation that Puccini's entire output requires reappraisal. And so, he has increasingly come to be understood as a musician searching for a way forward into the modern age. Personal details
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Songwriter / Librettist
Renato Simoni
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Songwriter / Librettist
Giuseppe Adami
| 1878-1946
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Arranger
Deborah Burton
| 1954
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