Operavox - Turandot (Episode 6)

Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. Puccini left the opera unfinished at the time of his death in 1924; Franco Alfano completed it in 1926. posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.

The opera is set in China and follows the Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. In order to win her hand in marriage, a suitor must solve three riddles, with a wrong answer resulting in their execution. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot refuses to marry him. He offers her a way out: if she is able to guess his name before dawn the next day, he will accept death.

The title of the opera is derived from the Persian term Turandokht ('daughter of Turan'), a name frequently given to Central Asian princesses in Persian poetry. Turan is a region of Central Asia that was once part of the Persian Empire. Dokht is a contraction of dokhtar (daughter).

The beginnings of Turandot can likely be found in Haft Peykar, a twelfth-century epic by the Persian poet Nizami. One of the stories in Haft Peykar features a Russian princess. In 1722, François Pétis de la Croix published his Les Mille et Un Jours (The Thousand and One Days), a collection of stories which were purportedly taken from Middle Eastern folklore and mythologies. One of these stories, believed to be inspired by Nizami, features a cold princess named Turandokht. De la Croix's story was adapted into a play, Turandot, by the Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi in 1762, which was then adapted by Friedrich Schiller into another play in 1801. It was Schiller's version that inspired Puccini to write the opera.