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VERSION:2.0
PRODID:www.oper-in-berlin.de
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UID:69b6441060b3b
DTSTART:20260211T193000
SEQUENCE:0
TRANSP:OPAQUE
DTEND:20260211T213000
LOCATION:Deutsche Oper Berlin\, Berlin
SUMMARY:Turandot
CLASS:PUBLIC
DESCRIPTION:In his last opera\, which was left unfinished\, Puccini explore
 d the aesthetics of the new mass medium of film. Lorenzo Fioroni's product
 ion builds a bridge between the oppressed but sensation-seeking Chinese op
 era-going public and the consumers of the modern media world ... Conductor
 : Daniel Carter\; Director: Lorenzo Fioroni\; With Anna Pirozzi / Catherin
 e Foster\, Angelo Villari / SeokJong Baek\, Nina Solodovnikova / Maria Mot
 olygina\, Michael Bachtadze\, Kangyoon Shine Lee\, Thomas Cilluffo et al.\
 nAbout the workA nation is cowed by its princess. Turandot\, beautiful and
  fascinating representative of a royal dynasty\, presides over a gruesome 
 ritual: only her marriage to a suitor will bring an end to the violence\, 
 but no would-be bridegroom has yet managed to solve the riddles. The same 
 old spectacle plays out\, ending in yet another execution\, until Calaf\, 
 the son of a deposed ruler from a foreign land\, unexpectedly answers the 
 riddles correctly. He then turns the tables on Turandot\, forcing her to a
 nswer his own question if she wants to steal out of her obligation. Puccin
 i’s times are changing rapidly\, the art world is going through drastic 
 transformation and new\, abstract forms are being coined to reflect modern
 -day experience. And the composer\, in his early 60s\, is again trying to 
 break new ground. \n\nPuccini spent the last four years of his life workin
 g on TURANDOT\, based on a fairy tale by Carlo Gozzi [1762]. The score was
  his richest and altogether most dissonant. Far from being the soundtrack 
 to a cutesy picture of a doll-like China\, the exotic music provided the b
 ackdrop to a world suffused in an atmosphere of unimaginable cruelty. Try 
 as he might\, Puccini never did settle on a resolution to his drama. The c
 omposer who was ever leery of happy endings never managed to escape from t
 he dead-end that he’d created for himself through Liù’s sacrifice and
  the imminent pairing of Turandot and Calaf. The question of how the two m
 ight ever discover some common ground remained unanswered. Puccini was var
 iously intrigued and repelled by the idea of presenting of an all-encompas
 sing love as a means to redemption in the face of everything that speaks a
 gainst it – and could not bring himself to paint such a utopia. He left 
 only a fragment behind when he died and the Ricordi publishing house broug
 ht in the composer Franco Alfano to complete the opera\, based on sketches
  left behind by Puccini.\n\nAbout the productionLorenzo Fioroni’s produc
 tion sets the action of the story in a fairy-tale realm of indeterminable 
 period but one which nonetheless is reminiscent of modern-day dictatorship
 s. The riddle and execution scenes are dwelt on and give the impression th
 at violence plays a ritualistic\, quasi-religious role. Pitted against thi
 s is the desire\, expressed repeatedly by the elite and the plebs\, to end
  the oppression and see all groups reconciled. It is on this taut spectrum
  between violent rule and a yearning for love that Calaf and Turandot circ
 le each other. Yet instead of pouring oil on troubled waters\, the new cou
 ple usher in a new era of terror.\n\nFioroni rummages in the psychologies 
 of the main protagonists and discovers in both a marked tendency towards v
 iolence. Calaf\, too\, is the scion of a former despot and\, by looking on
  as Liù sacrifices herself for him\, shows that saving face and achieving
  his goals is more important to him than saving lives. And it is this area
  of unscrupulous overlap that makes his final pact with Turandot plausible
 . And so it goes: their unfolding passion is reflected not in an overturni
 ng of the brutal system but in a continuation of tyranny.
DTSTAMP:20260315T053056Z
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