TurandotIngela Brimberg as Turandot
Giacomo Puccini · First performed Milan, 1926
Puccini's last opera: an ice-cold princess, three riddles, and a prince who stakes his life to win her.
The opera
In legendary Peking, the princess Turandot will marry only a man of royal blood who can answer her three riddles; every suitor who fails is beheaded. An unknown prince, Calaf, answers all three, and when Turandot begs to be released from her promise, he offers her a riddle of his own: if she can learn his name by dawn, he will die.
Through the night nobody in the city may sleep. The slave girl Liù, who loves Calaf, is tortured but refuses to reveal his name and takes her own life. Calaf finally tells Turandot his name himself, and she announces that she knows it: it is Love. Puccini died before finishing the opera, and it was completed by Franco Alfano.
Ingela Brimberg as Turandot
Ingela Brimberg sang Turandot in two productions in 2022, at the Teatro Regio in Turin and in Daniel Kramer's staging at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and has also sung the role at the Semperoper Dresden.
Reviews
“Brimberg’s ‘In questa reggia’ and much else besides was sung with suitably imperious effect.”