Word: timur
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...cruel princess must her three Sphinx-like rid win her hand. If they fail, awaits them. So far, twenty have died. Prince Calef, serts his exiled father Timur Turandot's questions, is in answering them. How princess still refuses him. roposes that if she find out before dawn she can dis him as she sees fit. Liu, the vant of Timur who has re faithful to him, claims that knows Calaf's name and suicide rather than reveal before her death, Liu tells Turandot that she has died for Calaf because she loves him. Turandot, moved by Liu's simple...
There are three fairly distinct types of characters and music in the work: the super-heroes, Calaf and Turandot, who sing extremely high, barbarically exciting melodies; the pathetic educators, Liu and Timur, who are alloted simple, quite moving themes reminiscent of earlier Puccini; the commentators, the chorus and Turandot's amusing Chancellor, Ping, Pang and Pong, whose music abruptly shifts from lyric to comic to barbaric. Calaf and Turandot are conceived as opposing extremes. Calaf, the epitome of virility, is adventurous, aggressive, passionate and egocentric. The princess, frigidity personified, is similarly egocentric, but she is fearful of change, defensive...
...inhuman conduct--which was precisely what Puccini had intended. (In one of his many letters to Giuseppe Adami, the librettist, Puccini had called Calaf and Turandot "almost super-human beings.") However, their inhuman conduct was to become humanized through Liu's example. Calaf's cruel desertion of Liu and Timur and Turandot's vicious behavior towards her subjects and suitors alike was not condoned by Puccini. During the final duet (the part he never completed), the composer intended Calaf and Turandot "to descend through love to the level of mankind." They would at times echo Liu's touchingly simple music...
...Timur, Giorgio Tozzi brings so much sincerity to the part that I can only regret that he did not perform in the Metropolitan revival which I saw a few weeks ago. In his beautiful scene after the death of Liu, Tozzi evokes Timur's peculiar mixture of frustrated power and deep affection with especial effectiveness. Renata Tebaldi has recorded Liu once before, for a London release, and time seems to have lessened the appropriateness of her great voice for this role. Today, she sounds more like a dramatic Verdian heroine, than a pitiful slavo girl. But her extremely sensitive phrasing...
...Metropolitan is bringing its sumptuous revival of Turandot to Boston this spring--with Nilsson, France Corelli, a great new Calaf, Anna Moffo as Liu, and Tozzi in his first performance as Timur. If it is at all possible that any seats still remain, snap them up: It will prove--I am absolutely sure--an unforgettable evening. However, if you discover that others have beaten you to it, console yourself by obtaining this recording. It, too, has its unforgettable moments...