Opera

Turandot

Giacomo Puccini

03 Jul, 23 - 22 Jul, 23

Musical conductors: Nicola Luisotti y Diego García Rodríguez | Stage director: Robert Wilson | Principal Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real

03 Jul 23

Premiere

22 Jul 23

Last performace

Shows

The plot of Turandot is set in a legendary and mysterious Peking. Princess Turandot challenges her suitors to solve three riddles. If they solve them, they will win her heart. If not, they will die. A brave prince, Calaf, falls in love with her at first sight and accepts the challenge. Emotions reach their peak when Calaf and Turandot face each other in a musical and emotional duel. Love, passion and sacrifice intertwine in this journey destined to melt Turandot's icy heart.

Considered Giacomo Puccini's masterpiece, Turandot transports the audience to a fantasy land based on a Western conception of China. In the universe proposed by stage director Robert Wilson, the most important thing is light, line and colour, from the first moment to the brilliant denouement. The last opera by Giacomo Puccini and the closing of the Teatro Real's 22-23 season.

With his last opera - left incomplete by his death in 1924 and finished by Franco Alfano– Giacomo Puccini took an ambitious step in the adaptation of his style to the new currents in music which evolved after the Great War. As a point of departure, the composer took a piece of the 17th century Commedia dell’Arte Del, to advance in a direction that pointed unequivocally – but without forsaking it own identity– to the author of The Rites of Spring. As a result, in Turandot there coexist the melodic intensity of its arias –«Nessun Dorma»–, the echo of Chinese popular songs —«Mòlìhuā» or «Jasmine Theme »—, characters from the puppet theatre –Ping, Pang and Pong– along with instrumentation and colourful tribal rhythms that definitely beat from Stravinsky.

Yet, Turandot is also –as is The Rites of Spring– a grandiose ritual of fertility in which, by way of the ceremony of the three enigmas – plus a fourth–, the sexual act is no longer a brutal demonstration of male dominance, but one that transforms into an amorous encounter of mutual consent. It is along this line – ritualistic and symbolic – that the stylized stage production by Robert Wilson returns to the Teatro Real – as the culmination of the season – which we had the opportunity to see four seasons ago.

All performances of Turandot are dedicated to the memory of Pedro Lavirgen

Lyric drama in three acts

Music by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, based on the homonymous fable by Carlo Gozzi

Premiere at the Teatro alla Scala of Milán 25 de April, 1926

Premiere at the Teatro Real, 14 February, 1998

Production of the Teatro Real, in coproduction with the Lithuanian National Opera, the Canadian Opera Company of Toronto, Houston Grand Opera and the Opéra National de París.

Artistic team

Musical conductors | Nicola Luisotti

Diego García Rodríguez | 18, 21 July

Stage director, stage designer, and light designer | Robert Wilson

Codirector | Nicola Panzer

Associate light designer | John Torres

Costume designer | Jacques Reynaud

Dramaturg | José Enrique Macián

Principal Chorus of the Teatro Real Conductor | Andrés Máspero

Children chorus Conductor | Ana González

Cast

Princess Turandot | Anna Pirozzi - 3, 6, 14, 16, 19, 22 jul