- Turandot was Puccini’s last opera, left unfinished at his death. The composer Franco Alfano completed the third act.1
- Puccini worked on Turandot during the last five years of his life, but he died of a heart attack in 1924, having only made it to the first scene of the third act.
- When he died, Puccini left behind 23 pages of notes for the ending of Turandot in his hospital room. He had been working on the opera until his last moments.
- Turandot premiered at La Scala on April 25, 1926. Arturo Toscanini conducted this performance.2
- At the premiere, the performance ended with the death of Liù, who sacrifices herself for the love of Calaf. This is where Puccini’s score left off before he died.
- At this point Toscanini laid down his baton, faced the audience and said something like, “Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died.” (Various reports recall Toscanini’s statement slightly differently).
- In fact, Puccini did not die immediately after writing this section, because he worked on scenes out of order, but it was the latest part of the story that Puccini completed. It has been speculated that Toscanini made his little speech because he actually didn’t want to use Alfano’s Act 3 material.3
- Synopsis from The Metropolitan Opera
Sources
- Michele Girardi, “Puccini, Giacomo (ii),” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed April 1, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278242.
- Ibid.
- William Ashbrook and Harold Powers, Puccini’s Turandot: The End of the Great Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princteon University Press, 1991), 152.
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