I really liked reading “Turnadot” by Giacomo Puccini. Did I enjoy the parts where Liu was begging to be tortured while proclaiming her love and killing herself with a dagger, or when the servants threw half-naked ladies at the feet of Calaf? No, I didn’t. I did feel some disgust at certain parts of the dialogue. However, I couldn’t stop reading, and I found myself wanting to know what would happen next.
In summary, Turnadot is a princess who does not want to be possessed by any man because of her ancestor who was treated badly by a male. So, anyone who wanted her hand in marriage had to answer three riddles. If that suitor failed, he was executed. One unknown prince (whom we never find out where he’s from) has a slave and is reunited with his father. He sees the princess and falls in love. He takes the challenge to answer the three riddles and succeeds. Between this and the next dawn so much happens. Liu, his servant, proclaims her love for him and kills herself. Calaf is horrified but still tries to woo Turnadot and succeeds by forcing a kiss on her. She melts from his expressive love and they live happily ever after. The end.
Once summarized, it’s a pretty short plot. But the opera lengthens and draws it out with so much dialogue and emotion, that the readers learn so much. While there may be many points in this opera to argue and discuss about, there is no doubt that this opera has hooked the readers or audience. As an example, for myself, I was very anxious and eager to see if Calaf could answer the riddles or not. And when he did get all of the answers, I was very surprised.
After watching the videos though, I had a different feeling. When reading the opera, I read how cold and angry Turnadot was. Yet, it was difficult for me personally to feel that anger and frost from Turnadot when she was singing. Singing opera is so melodic, it’s difficult to feel any anger coming from the singer. I definitely could sense and see any feelings or emotions of love or romance. If I hadn’t read the opera before watching the clips, I would assume that the singers were singing about a tragedy of wanting love or singing about a new love experience. Maybe it had to do with the music, which didn’t really express any anger or negative emotions.
Anyways, I’m looking forward to watching the Opera and hopefully it will change my mindset.
I completely agree with how you contrast the opera and the libretto. When reading the libretto, I felt as if the content of the plot had me in a more serene mood. Though, the entire storyline proves to be very dramatic, I was never able to grasp that passion, and enthusiasm for what was going on in the moment. However, when I watched the videos after reading the play, I learned a whole new side to the art form, and realized why opera proves to be successful. There seems to be so much expression and emotion coming from the voices of the “cast”.
Opera is such a unique form of music that we, as a society, aren’t exposed to that often. It is a completely different art form that may have a different way of expressing certain emotions than the way we perceive that emotion should sound like. When you take away the plot, it is amazing how concise the actual play is, but the beauty of the play relies on the dialogue and acting. I guess we will have to wait and see the actual opera to get the full experience of emotions that play lines lack.
I felt the same way about it being difficult for me to feel the anger Turnadot in the video when she was singing. Perhaps, it was because I have very little exposure to operas, or maybe the actor was trying to convey the character in a different frame light than how we perceived her in the text. Hopefully, when we see it live we will have a better understanding of the context in which the character is singing. Taking the clip outside the previous and following scenes, I assume, may not do the actor/singer justice.
I agree with you in that it must be hard to portray anger or coldness through a melody, especially a beautiful melody that accompanies Turnadot. She seems rather graceful, if anything, from what I saw in the videos that I watched. I agree with you that while reading the text, it feels as if Turnadot is some sort of ruthless, maniacal woman. However, during the performance she seem like a character that could be sympathized with. She’s depicted very beautifully, and she carries herself quite calmly, however there is a pompous aura that surrounds her, which adds, somewhat, to the cruelty that accompanies Turnadot. But I agree with you in that the attitude of the text and the attitude of the performance are very different, almost as if they convey different meanings to the opera.
You brought up two ideas that occurred to me as well. 1) Turandot is distant from society because of how she kills off the suitors who answer incorrectly and 2) I don’t understand how the opera is going to stretch out this story for over 3 hours. At its core, the plot is more or less simplistic so how will they do it? Also, as much as I detested Turandot after reading the story, the actress singing makes me like her. I wonder whether or not we will as a class like or dislike turandot’s actress.