Turandot Libretto was definitely a pleasant change to my typical reading material. The Opera, written by Giacomo Puccini and finished after his death by Franco Alfano, takes a very familiar road in it’s tragic story telling. It tells a story of a troubled princesses named Turandot. She swore to avenge her ancestor’s rape by refusing to let any man take her, and sentence anyone who tried to death. There was an ultimatum though; if a man tried to marry the princess, he would have to correctly answer three of her tricky riddles. Unexpectedly, an exiled prince charming comes out of the blue, ready and eager to accept the challenge. Although receiving several warnings of the dangers lurking around these riddles, Prince Calaf was determined to answer them and take the princess’s hand in marriage.
As expected, the prince answered the unanswerable and baffled Turandot, but plot twist the Princess begs to void the marriage. Calaf then challenged her to a question of his won, if she found out his name before dawn, he would live no more. This leads to a series of events where the prince’s slave commits suicide in an attempt to save his identity from being discover. This Is a major area in the play where the theme of love could be seen. The slaves love for the prince was so strong that she was willing to give her life from him to be able to live with another woman. I just have no words for that, its appalling.
The things people do for love is unexplainable. The Opera shows that love could be very dangerous but at the same time it could save us. I completely agree with this perceptive of love because it better portrays reality. Love could mislead us into doing unthinkable things and potentially ruining up our whole lives over people that could care less about us. But at the same time its what gives us motivation and meaning in life to go on and look ahead for a brighter tomorrow. I feel like the Opera did a very good job at incorporating this dynamic view of love.
After watching the videos of the music and opera singers I was able to better underst
and the emotions. The way Birgit Nilsson’s voice resonated in my head was beautiful. You could almost feel what she’s feeling and be one with her. I believe that actually hearing music and signing while watching the play will give us a completely different aura.
I also felt the videos helped me experience the emotions of the scenes better. The opera was a surprisingly fast read with few in depth descriptions of what was going on. While the storyline was very engaging, the text seemed a bit too shallow. After listening to the videos however, I realized that whatever the text lacked in depth, the music made up for. The emotion of the opera was not meant to be conveyed through the words themselves, but rather through the notes, the dynamics and the cadences. While Turnadot is often performed in italian, the universality of music will make it possible to fully enjoy the opera without speaking the language.
I do agree with you when you say love is a destructive force. It drove all the characters in the opera to do something crazy. Especially Liu, whose only reason to sacrifice herself was her love for the prince. Her suicide truly shocked me since I have never read about a character that loyal and selfless. In Calaf’s case, love makes him blind. He is willing to sacrifice his life for someone he just met. I’d maybe understand him a little more if Turandot was nicer, but honestly Calaf’s obsession with her makes no sense to me.
Love is definitely a very dynamic idea and, like you said, it could hurt us or save us. I think that Love can be completely illogical; it’s hard to judge one love as a good/right/justified love from one that is bad/wrong/unjustified. It’s a very emotional concept, and sometimes people sacrifice things for love, just because they FEEL a connection to the person/thing that they cannot logically validate. And I would definitely agree with you that ‘reading’ about love is different than ‘listening’ to love. Music and singing have powerful influences over the emotions of the human psyche, as it helps connect the audience by allowing them to better understand and feel the emotions through music.