Rome, in Santa Cecilia Antonio Pappano conducts Turandot with Kaufmann and Radvanovsky

It will be one Turandot special, the one scheduled for March 12 (6 pm) a Rome, in the Sala Santa Cecilia of the Auditorium Parco della Musica: a Turandot with a triple absolute debut, for Antonio Pappano who had never directed it in his career, and for the two main performers who face their respective roles for the first time, the American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky What will be Turandot and the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who will give body and voice to the prince Calaf. It will also be the first time that Puccini's extreme work enters the billboards of the Santa Cecilia Academy.

On the podium of theOrchestra, Choir and White Voices of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia (educated by Mario Monti), Pappano will have an exceptional cast which also includes Ermonela Jaho (Liù), Michael Spyres (Altoum), Gregory Bonfatti (Pang), Siyabonga Maqungo (Pong), Mattia Olivieri (Ping), Michele Pertusi (Timur) and Michael Mofidian (A Mandarin).

Announced as “the most anticipated musical event of the year and among the most important record productions of 2023”, Turandot will be presented in concert form and with the original ending by composer Franco Alfano.

The label Warner Classics he will make a CD, recorded in the weeks preceding the concert, which will bring forward the centenary of Puccini's death in 2024 by one year.

Turandot, last opera and musical testament of Giacomo Puccini, was born from the collaboration with librettists Giuseppe Adami (also author of the libretti of the Rondine and of the Tabarro) e Renato Simoni, and is freely inspired by the famous theatrical fairy tale of the same name by Carlo Gozzi (1762).

The composer began work on the opera in the spring of 1920, but death overtook him during the composition of the third act. Thus the duet between Calaf and Turandot and the final picture remained unfinished.

Incompleteness that has sparked the debate among scholars, between those who lead it back to the inexorable progress of the evil that had struck Puccini, and those who see the cause of it in the intimate impossibility of the Master to untie the crucial knot of the drama, the transformation of the princess. Turandot, cold and bloody, in a woman in love.

The opera was staged at Teatro alla Scala of Milan the April 25, 1926, two years after the author's death, directed by Arturo Toscanini, directed by Giovacchino Forzano. It is known the episode that saw Toscanini put down his wand, after the last scene written by the Maestro, two bars after the line "Sleep, forget, Liù, poesia!" addressing the audience with the words: "Here the work ends, because at this point the Master is dead.". The following evening the opera was performed, again under the direction of Toscanini, with the finale by Alfano, which will also be performed on the evening of Santa Cecilia.

“Turandot is an opera that I have avoided directing in the past - he commented Antonio Pappano, which by Puccini he has already recorded La bohème, Il triptych, La rondine, Tosca, Madama Butterfly - however, over time I have been fascinated by the score, the orchestration, its conception [...] Turandot is permeated by a splendid refinement, which is able to emerge in a work full of biting irony. Puccini moves between tragedy and lightness, and it is an aspect that I really like.

Then there is the whole story of the finale, which is absolutely fascinating. […] Alfano was not as brilliant as Puccini, however his final from a theatrical point of view works, and so we decided to perform it on March 12 and record it on disc, including the approximately 104 lines suppressed by Toscanini.

Turandot is a perfect work for the Choir and Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, and the Santa Cecilia room has the ideal acoustics to make it at its best. I hope to make a very beautiful performance ".

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(Top, Turandot, poster by Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1926, bottom, Sondra Radvanovsky, photocredit © Michael Cooper)