Programmheft Turandot 2016

ACT ONE Princess

ACT ONE Princess Turandot is determined to remain untouched. She has an agreement with her father Altoum whereby she need only marry the man who can solve three riddles that she sets. Suitors who fail are beheaded. The Prince of Persia has failed the test. The crowd of onlookers eagerly await the spectacle of his decapitation and call out for the executioner. In the crowd is the old king Timur, now living in exile and assisted by Liù. When he collapses, a stranger comes to his aid. In him, Timur recognises his son Calaf, also banished and believed dead. Liù tells Calaf that she has been taking care of the old man in remembrance of a smile that Calaf gave her long ago. When the crowd sees the Persian prince being led to his death, their bloodlust changes to pity and they cry out for mercy. Deaf to their appeals, Turandot gives the signal for execution. Calaf is transfixed by the sight of her. Timur and Liù try to dissuade him from seeking Turandot’s hand. The three „Masks“ Ping, Pang and Pong graphically describe the gruesome end he will meet if he continues on his course. The ghostly voices of dead suitors which are heard likewise fail to make him change his mind. Calaf won’t listen to anyone: he rushes to strike the gong and take up the challenge of Turandot’s riddles. ACT TWO With one execution after another, Ping, Pang and Pong are exhausted. They daydream of relaxing pastimes and of Wa a better China ruled by a man, and long to escape the machinery of Turandot’s cruel game. If only the Princess would finally get married, then peace would reign in China once again! Preparations are made for the ceremony of riddles. The populace acclaims the aged Emperor, who implores the stranger to abandon his bid to solve the riddles. But Calaf is intransigent. Turandot appears and tells the story of her ancestress Lou-Ling, who reigned happily until she was abused and murdered by a man. Turandot senses that unfortunate woman’s spirit alive again inside her, and doesn’t want the same thing to happen to her. Calaf finds the answer to all three questions and is cheered by the crowd. But the Princess refuses to honour her promise and begs her father not to deliver her up to the stranger like a slave woman. At this point the stranger renounces his claim, saying she should give herself to him out of love, not under compulsion. He boldly poses a riddle of his own: Turandot must discover his name by daybreak. If she does, he is ready to release her from her obligation and go to his death. ACT THREE Turandot has commanded, on pain of death, that no one may sleep until the stranger’s name has been discovered. Terror and horror spread across the city. In his ardour Calaf dreams of freeing Turandot from her solitude. His fantasies are trampled under foot by Ping, Pang and Pong, who try to bribe him: they ask him to tell them his name and escape. The crowd surges in and threatens Calaf. Then they go in search of Timur and Liù who are thought to have the life-saving information. They are dragged in and Turandot orders them to be tortured. To protect her master, Liù claims that she alone knows the stranger’s name, but will never utter it. After Liù has endured her first tortures, Turandot asks her what the secret is that makes her so strong. Liù responds that it’s simply love, and resolves to sacrifice herself so that „Turandot can be conquered by the Prince‘s loving flame“. Her suicide halts the Princess’s murderous frenzy and silences her scorn. Deeply moved, the crowd turns away from the Princess and the foreign Prince. Turandot and Calaf stand facing one another in dawn’s first light. Marco Arturo Marelli Translated by Giles Shephard 27 TURANDOT

PUCCINIS LETZTE OPER TURANDOT LEBEN DURCH DIE LIEBE Giacomo Puccini — dieser Name klingt nach großer Oper und leidenschaftlicher Liebe. Nach Melodien, die unmittelbar ergreifen und nicht mehr aus dem Kopf gehen sowie Menschen, die für die und an der Liebe sterben. Mimì in La Bohème fühlt sich bei den mittellosen Pariser Künstlern zuhause und geht an ihrer Liebe zu Rodolfo zugrunde. Die kleine Japanerin Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly verspricht sich das große Glück, nachdem sie an einen US-Amerikaner verkauft worden ist, der die Liebe aber nur als unterhaltsame Investition betrachtet. Die Sängerin Tosca bringt den Polizeichef um, weil er ihren Geliebten foltern lässt, den sie dennoch durch dessen grausames Spiel verliert. „Wer für die Liebe gelebt hat, wird durch die Liebe sterben.“ Diese Worte des Liedverkäufers in Puccinis Oper Il tabarro sind für den Regisseur und Bühnenbildner Marco Arturo Marelli exemplarisch für fast alle Frauengestalten in Puccinis Oper. Weltweit wurden Puccinis Opern am Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts aufgeführt, in London wurde er 1920 von der Presse als „König der Melodien“ empfangen, als dort in wenigen Wochen seine vier erfolgreichsten Opern aufgeführt wurden. Doch gelang es Puccini mit seinen nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg komponierten Opern nicht mehr an die großen Erfolge anzuknüpfen. Der Verlust von langjährigen künstlerischen Partnern traf den Komponisten zusätzlich: 1919 starb der Librettist Luigi Illica, dem Puccini die Textbücher zu La Bohème, Tosca und Madama LEBEN DURCH DIE LIEBE 28