Turandot (Busoni)
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| Original title: | Turandot |
Cover illustration for the orchestral suite for Turandot , 1906 |
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| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Ferruccio Busoni |
| Libretto : | Ferruccio Busoni |
| Literary source: | Turandot by Carlo Gozzi |
| Premiere: | May 11, 1917 |
| Place of premiere: | City Theater Zurich |
| Playing time: | approx. 1:45 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Beijing and the surrounding area |
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Turandot is a Chinese fable in two acts by Ferruccio Busoni (music and libretto).
Emergence
In 1905 and 1911 Busoni composed incidental music for Carlo Gozzi's Chinese theater fairy tale Turandot (1762). In 1916/17 Busoni transformed this incidental music into an opera, the score of which was finished in early March 1917. This should be added to his “ Arlecchino ”, which lasted only 60 minutes.
The first performance took place together with Arlecchino under the direction of the composer on May 11, 1917 in the Stadttheater Zürich (today the Zurich Opera House ). One year later the work was performed in Frankfurt am Main and in 1947 saw 13 performances in Hamburg . Today it is seldom performed: in 1966 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin , in 1967 in concert in New York and in 1980 together with Arlecchino in a production by Gottfried Wagner in Trier .
Instrumentation
2 flutes (2nd also picc ), 2 oboes (2nd also EH ), 2 clarinets (2nd also bass clap ), 2 bassoons (2nd also K.Fg. ), 4 horns , 3 trumpets , 3 trombones , timpani , Percussion (4–5 players: glockenspiel , xylophone , tam-tam , kettledrum, drum , snare drum, triangle , bass drum, cymbals ), celesta , harp , strings
Stage music: 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani, percussion (drum, cymbals, tam-tams, bells)
action
1st act
In front of one of the city gates of Beijing, Prince Kalaf appears, who wants to court the beautiful Princess Turandot, the daughter of the Emperor of China. This gives each of her suitors three riddles and anyone who cannot solve them is beheaded. Kalaf is not deterred by the heads of his hapless predecessors, which are planted on the city wall.
In the throne room of the palace Turandot receives Kalaf and although she is deeply impressed by him, she does not give up her demand for the solution of the riddle. To the delight of the emperor, Kalaf manages to solve the riddle, whereupon Turandot threatens to stab himself. Then Kalaf opens up the possibility of making up for her defeat by suggesting that she should solve a riddle for her part. If she succeeds in solving the riddle for his name and his origin, he wants to renounce the marriage.
2nd act
In Turandot's women's room, Adelma, who Kalaf had met earlier and had hoped to win him over, reveals Turandot's solution to the riddle.
In the throne room Turandot mentions the name and origin of Kalaf, whereupon he is close to despair. When Turandot notices this, she confesses her love for him.
Conception
Busoni had already defended the form of the number opera in the draft of a new aesthetic of musical art, written in 1906 , and divided his Turandot into clearly separated, closed numbers consisting of arias , ariosi , ensembles and choirs , recitatives and spoken dialogue scenes .
The use of the absolute musical form is - as in Arlecchino and Doctor Faust - an important stylistic element. So the entire 1st picture is a closed rondo .
With Arlecchino and Turandot , the composer wanted to revive the Commedia dell'arte . When designing the libretto, he essentially followed the Gozzi template, only the three puzzles are his own invention.
literature
- Piper's Enzyklopädie des Musiktheater , Volume 1 (Abbatini - Donizetti), pp. 476-477, Verlag R. Piper GmbH & Co. KG. Munich 1986, ISBN 3-492-02411-4
- Antony Beaumont, Busoni the Composer . London: Faber and Faber , 1985. ISBN 0-571-13149-2 .
- Kii-Ming Lo , ping, pong, pang. The characters of the Commedia dell'arte in Busoni's and Puccini's »Turandot« operas , in: Peter Csobádi, Ulrich Müller et al. (Ed.), The funny person on the stage , Anif / Salzburg (Müller-Speiser) 1994, pp. 311-323.
- Kii-Ming Lo , Turandot on the opera stage , Frankfurt / Bern / New York (Peter Lang) 1996, ISBN 3-631-42578-3 .
- Kii-Ming Lo / Jürgen Maehder , Puccini's Turandot - Tong hua, xi ju, ge ju, Taipei (Gao Tan Publishing) 1998, ISBN 957-98196-1-0 .
- Kii-Ming Lo / Jürgen Maehder , Turandot de tui bian [ The Transformations of "Turandot" ], Taipei (Gao Tan Publishing Co.) 2004, ISBN 986-7542-50-9 .
- Kii-Ming Lo , On the genesis of Ferruccio Busoni's »Turandot« group of works and their music-theatrical aesthetics , in: Albrecht Riethmüller / Hyesu Shin (ed.), Busoni in Berlin. Facets of a cosmopolitan composer , Stuttgart (Franz Steiner) 2004, pp. 143-175.
- Karl Vollmöller , Turandot Chinese fairy tale game by Carlo Gozzi; German by Karl Vollmoeller . Berlin: S. Fischer, 1911.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Piper's Encyclopedia, p. 477
- ^ Piper's Encyclopedia, p. 476
- ↑ Full text at Wikisource