On the evening of 25 April 1926, the curtain of La Scala rose on an unfinished opera and on a silence destined to enter legend. Turandot, Giacomo Puccini’s final and most daring masterpiece, was premiered without its creator, who had died two years earlier, leaving unresolved the boldest challenge of his career. Set in an imaginary China “in the time of fairy tales,” Turandot marks a radical turning point in Puccini’s theatre. The ice-cold princess, cruel and symbolic, subjects her suitors to deadly riddles until the arrival of Calaf begins to fracture a world ruled by fear and blood. Around them unfolds a ritual crowd, the grotesque ministers Ping, Pong, and Pang, and above all Liù, a fragile and deeply human figure whose sacrifice forms the emotional core of the opera. Puccini weaves together grand opéra, exotic color, sharp dissonances, and pure lyricism, creating a score of extraordinary complexity. Yet the final duet - the moment of Turandot’s transformation through love - remained unresolved. At the world premiere, Arturo Toscanini halted the performance at the exact point where Puccini had laid down his pen, turning absence itself into living memory. Nearly a century later, Turandot continues to challenge music theatre with its unresolved tension between ice and emotion, power and humanity.
A new project brings William Kentridge and Giorgio Morandi into conversation through video, sculpture and reflections on time and memory.
