Puccini's Turandot: Bewitched, Bothered, And Beheaded

Aria Code

WQXR & The Metropolitan Opera

Music Interviews, Music Commentary, Aria, Music, Arts, Metropolitan, Performing Arts, Code, Wqxr, Opera, Wnyc, Studios

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2020

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The pain and fear of trauma can have a dramatic effect on your desire for love and intimacy.

This is true for Puccini’s Turandot, the titular ice princess who cuts off her feelings… and the heads of her suitors. In her first aria, “In questa reggia,” Turandot explains that she will avenge the rape and murder of her ancestress from thousands of years ago, and that she is determined never to be possessed by any man.

In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests explore the truth at the heart of this aria: that time doesn’t heal all wounds, and that some are played out and recreated with every generation. At the end of the show, Christine Goerke sings “In questa reggia” from the Metropolitan Opera stage.

The Guests

Soprano Christine Goerke loves the challenge of playing characters that seem unsympathetic, uncovering their complexity and somehow winning over the audience by the end of the opera. This is one of the many things that draws her to Turandot.

Actor Anna Chlumsky became an opera fanatic after working on the Broadway show Living on Love with co-star Renée Fleming. Turandot is a particular family favorite, and the former “Veep” star enjoys watching Puccini’s grand spectacle over breakfast with her daughters.

Will Berger is the author of Puccini Without Excuses, a funny and informative guide to one of opera’s greatest composers. Berger is equal parts opera buff and metalhead, bringing his love of intense storytelling to his work as a writer and media commentator for The Metropolitan Opera.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What is this woman in white that we're waiting for? Is she purity and virginity, or is she death?
0:14.1	From WQXR in the Metropolitan Opera, this is Ariaco. I'm Rianne Gins. You end up being the center
0:21.3	of a solar system and everything sort of spinning around you somehow. And it is thrilling,
0:28.4	it is terrifying, it is exhilarating. Every episode unwraps a single area so you can see what's inside.
0:37.0	Today it's in Questeredja, which means in this palace from Puccini's Tornado.
0:43.7	Then when she gets to seeing it's not look how nice I sing, it's here's why I sing.
0:59.2	Now this season on Ariacoad we've been focused on the many forms of desire, how it shows up in our own
1:04.6	lives and how the best moments in opera express those feelings. This episode is sort of the upside
1:11.2	down of all that. It's about suppressing desire, you know, cutting yourself off from your own feelings
1:18.0	and the rest of the world. And sometimes it's for good, healthy and self protective reasons.
1:24.2	So let's talk about Tornado, Jocomo Puccini's final opera.
1:30.6	Tornado is known as the ice princess. She's sworn off all intimacy and love forever. And she's not
1:37.6	just playing hard to get, she's legitimately very hard to get. She presents suitors with three
1:43.3	riddles and if they don't solve them all correctly she puts their heads on spikes and adds them to
1:48.3	her growing collection. It's kind of like the Bachelorette but a little bit bloodier.
1:54.1	So in walks the tenor, Prince Calliff, with his father Timura and the slave girl Liu in tow.
2:00.0	Now this dude obviously likes a challenge because he's undeterred by the prospect of the
2:05.2	whole heads on spikes thing, heads on spikes just just reiterating that. He's got swagger and he
2:13.5	wants to win the princess so he's up for the riddles.
2:18.5	Now it seems simple enough but Tornado's entrance aria, Inquistaregia, shows us the story is deeper
2:25.6	than it appears. In the aria, Tornado explains to Prince Calliff why she rejects love.
2:32.0	It turns out her ancestors, Princess Lu Ling, was defeated, raped and killed in this palace.
	...

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