About the work
Turandot is an opera in two acts by Ferruccio Busoni based on Carlo Gozzi’s theatrical fairy tale, for which he also wrote the German libretto. It grew out of incidental music Busoni had composed for Gozzi’s play in 1905 and 1911 and was reworked into an opera in 1916/17; the score was finished in early March 1917. It premiered on 11 May 1917 at the Stadttheater Zürich under the composer’s own baton, paired with his opera „Arlecchino“ on the same evening.
Plot
Prince Kalaf courts the Chinese princess Turandot and solves her three riddles. When she then threatens him with death, he offers her a riddle of his own in return: if she solves it, he will die. The slave Adelma reveals the solution to Turandot, but she instead confesses her love to Kalaf.
Cultural significance
Unlike Puccini’s later „Turandot,“ Busoni largely dispenses with exotic colour and relies on closed musical forms, such as a rondo in the first tableau. As he wrote himself, he sought to breathe new life into commedia dell’arte by making „the comic serious and the serious comic“; today the work is only rarely performed.