They then drag in Timur and Liu but Calaf pretends he knows nothing about them. Ping, Pang and Pong turn up and try to buy off Calaf with women and riches. Turandot accepts, and the curtain falls - the Emperor hoping the Prince will be his son. Calaf, believing love will win out, gives her one possible escape: he is a prince, and if she can learn his name before sunrise, then he will die at dawn. Turandot is distraught at being forced to marry and pleads with her father, but he insists that she go through with it. What is born each night and dies each dawn? What flickers red and warm like a flame, but is not fire? What is like ice, but burns like fire? She advises Calaf to withdraw, but he is having none of it. Out of revenge, no man will ever have her. (This is the first music she sings in the opera.) Her ancestor Princess Lo-u-Ling ruled until she was raped and murdered by a foreign prince, and Turandot believes Lo-u-Ling lives in her. Turandot emerges and begins to describe why no man may possess her. The Emperor asks Calaf to withdraw his challenge. A trumpet sounds announcing the entrance of the Emperor. Ping, Pang and Pong discuss their place in society, interspersing humour - do we prepare for a wedding or a funeral - and nostalgia - we are living in an era of endless death. Turandot accepts his challenge as the curtain falls on Act I. Calaf is touched but never the less runs forward, shouting Turandot’s name and bangs the gong three times. The jaunty threesome tells him not to risk it, as do Timur and Liu, the latter being not very secretly in love with Calaf. The Prince of Persia is executed.īlinded by Turandot’s beauty, Calaf is about to rush forward and bang the gong, signalling that he wishes to take the riddles when Ping, Pang and Pong appear. The crowd appeals in his favour, but Turandot appears and signals for the execution to continue. Calaf (Jose Cura) © Johan Persson/Royal OperaĪs the moon rises, the Prince of Persia is led to his death.
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