Turandot
Dramma lirico in tre atti e cinque quadri. Finale: Franco Alfano (II) SC 91, 1923/24
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 Alfano Finale: created under pressure
This edition concludes with the standard second version of the finale by Franco Alfano (1926). Following Puccini’s death, his publisher faced the problem of finding a composer to complete the opera. They ultimately chose Alfano, who was already familiar with exotic subject matter and had a personal connection to Puccini.
Alfano initially developed a detailed first version for the end of the opera, in which Turandot’s psychological transformation unfolds in logical steps. However, Arturo Toscanini, who conducted the premiere in Milan, rejected it as being too long and too “personal.” He felt that Alfano’s own style was overly dominant. Under immense time pressure, Alfano had to make substantial cuts and rewrite about two-thirds of the music, resulting in the second version.
At the world premiere on April 25, 1926, Toscanini stopped the performance after Liù’s death. It was not until the following evening that Alfano’s second finale was heard – a solution that has since become standard at most opera houses.
The corresponding performance materials are available on hire.
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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
Franco Alfano
| 1875-1954
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