Giacomo Puccini’s 20th century opera, Turandot, is a masterpiece about sacrifice and love. Turandot is an eccentric tale about a young princess by the name of Turandot.
Princess Turandot does not want to be controlled by a man. Anyone who is a potential suitor of Turandot must answer three riddles correctly or be beheaded. An unknown prince, Calaf, falls head-over-heels in love with Turandot and is willing to bear the risk of death to become her husband. He able to answer the three riddles with little hesitation. Calaf, knowing the Turandot does not want to marry him, tells her that if she can find out his name, then she can murder him. Liu, the servant of the prince, proclaims her love for the prince and kills herself rather than be tortured into revealing his name. In the end, Turandot falls in love with the prince once she sees that he is genuine, romantic, and kind. Turandot proclaims she knows that the prince’s name is “love.”
At face value, the story of Turandot is quite silly. Granted, most plots of operas have a certain level of being over-the-top. It is quite ridiculous that Turandot could believe that answering riddles would be a good judge of character. The obvious response to my observation is that Turandot didn’t want anyone to answer the riddles properly so she could stay permanently single. I would ask why she couldn’t just turn down all the suitors? How could she have the power to behead men but not turn down suitors? If the goal was not to have anyone figure out the riddle, why not make the suitor solve a hundred riddles? While we are covering topics that confuse me, how is hope and answer to “What is born each night and dies at dawn”?
I’m not sure if any of the characters are relatable either. I can somewhat relate to self-sacrificial loyalty of Liù. I feel that type of loyalty towards my friends and family, however I’m not sure Calaf is worthy of that loyalty. Even though he is nice, Calaf seems rather two dimensional. Love isn’t supposed to purely physical. As an amateur writer, this has always been a pet peeve of mine. Love isn’t a one time grand gesture; love is a combination of little moments two people share that grow into love. At the beginning of the opera, I applauded Princess Turandot for being strong and independent. However, it seems like poor character development to make a character with her personality traits give in so easily to spur of the moment emotions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that people of strong character shouldn’t fall in love, I believe quiet the opposite actually. I’m saying that people should fall in love slowly, with people whose everyday quirks are captivating. I hope Puccini would have written a better ending where Princess Turandot doesn’t change so drastically.
Wow, you have similar thoughts to Keti’s. It does seem pretty unrealistic and over-exaggerated that Turnadot – this fierce, independent, and head-strong woman – suddenly melts with one kiss by Calaf. She has so much power but seems to lose it all when Calaf “wins” – the throne and her heart. Since this is an opera, the writer I guess did want to show the power of love and exaggerate all these emotions. I agree with you about your beliefs on love. Perhaps they fell in love, and not loved each other. Those two are different. People can fall in love with each other quickly and fall out of love, but it takes years to grow to love someone else
I agree with you on how Liu’s self-sacrificial loyalty to Calaf is a bit absurd. According to the opera, all it took for Liu to fall in love with Calaf was for him to smile at her. That gives me the impression of a middle-school crush at very best. Being willing to die for someone over that trivial sense of attraction is very absurd, but I think that was Puccini’s intention: to create an exaggerated version of love to dramatize what love can do to a person. Since love is a basically universally known topic, it engages all audiences and allows them to relate to the story on a conceptual level.
While I don’t agree that this piece is a masterpiece, I do agree that the entire libretto seems like a cartoonish exaggeration of love. I think I can answer some of your questions. Turandot clearly has a certain power over her father (daddy’s girl), but her power is still limited to whatever he allows and the people of China find acceptable. It would be dishonorable to vow to never marry when, as a princess, her duty is to marry a man that can lead/rule her kingdom (before feminism). If she has just a few difficult riddles, her subjects would assume the man that can solve them (future ruler) is wise, there’s hope for her to eventually marry (although she expects no man will match her intelligence), and she increases her value by having the princes risk their lives for the opportunity to marry her.