Turandot

Erika Sunnegårdh

Altoum

Magnus Kyhle

Timur

Michael Schmidberger

Calaf

Thiago Arancam

Liù

Magdalena Risberg

Ping

Linus Börjesson

Pang

Daniel Ralphsson

Pong

Conny Thimander

A mandarin

Ian Power

Conductor

Lawrence Renes

Act I

Princess Turandot must remain intact and have decided with his father, Emperor Altoum that she will only marry the suitor who can solve her three riddles. The corresponding errors are beheaded. Prince of Persia has just failed. Greedy waiting crowd at the executioner and the spectacle that his execution is. There is also the aged king Timur, who lives in exile with his faithful slave girl Liù. When Timur suddenly collapses, a stranger to the rescue. It turns out to be the son Calaf, also in exile, and that Timur thought was dead.

The execution of the Persian prince turned mob bloodlust to compassion and Turandot begs for mercy, but she allows herself to be persuaded. Calaf is spellbound by her revelation while Timur and Liù advises him to register as a suitor. Officials Ping, Pang and Pong portrays the terrible consequences of his spell can lead to, and the voices of already executed beseech him. Calaf is not listening, but hurries to the bell to hear the mysteries.

Act II

Ping, Pang and Pong are tired of all executions. They dream of a better China, where one man rules and the cruel machinery ceases. Only when Turandot marries the country can access the ro.Man preparing the next round with riddles. People pay tribute to the aged Emperor, and then try to dissuade the stranger, but Calaf stands by his decision. Turandot explains his motives: no one will take her, because her ancestor Lo-u-Ling once been raped and killed by a foreign prince. Until then, she had lived happily.

Calaf correctly answer three riddles. The people cheering. Turandot refuses, however, to keep his promise and tries to persuade her father not to give her away as a slave to this stranger. Calaf, who did not want her to be true to him by compulsion but of love, gives Turandot a riddle to solve: until the next morning, she will have figured out his name. If she answers correctly, he will free her from the promise and himself to death.  

Break

Act III

Turandot is the penalty of death commanded the people that no one may sleep until the stranger’s name is revealed. Terror reigns. Love dreaming about Turandot Calaf frees him from loneliness. Ping, Pang and Pong wake him from his dream and tries to bribe him. He will reveal his name and then escape. The crowd agrees: tell us your name, otherwise we will kill you. It then tries to get Timur and Liù to reveal the name. Turandot orders the Timur be tortured. To protect Timur Liù argues that only she knows the name, but she refuses to reveal it. After the torture Turandot asks Liù what allowed her to persevere. She replies that it is her love and decides to sacrifice his own life. She says Turandot only be defeated by the prince blazing love. ” Liu’s suicide silence the mockery and murder lust. Timur announces that the guilty must be punished. The people moving and turning to the princess and the Alien Prince. At dawn’s light visible Turandot and Calaf together.

Marco Arturo Marelli,
(Translation: Claes Wahlin)

Erika Sunnegårdh about their role in nature

Turandot is not another role like

“The big challenge with Turandot is to expose her humanity. If it is assumed that she is a cold and cruel man will be difficult to befoga the huge reversal or metamorphosis that needs to happen pretty quickly in the third act. I feel it’s always a little disconcerting when people reduce the woman to what takes place within the confines of the opera, rather than seeking reasons for her actions further back in time. You have to find what the cold surface veil over what it distracts from. As an actor, you always want to the internal conflict … try to put your finger on the pulse of what drives every word and action. Humans can generally be divided into two groups – those that move in the direction that they want, and those who move away from what they do not want to … Turandot is moving away from vulnerability, powerlessness, surrender. She bases her prejudices on what she has available: especially Lou-Ling, who was raped and dominated to the death of a prince who should have been her equal. Turandot has no illusions about what awaits one in marriage princess. By constructing a stupid game of their lives (both her ​​own and that of any prince), she creates a situation where the structure within which she lives does not have the power to determine her most intimate fate. Only insert from a very unlikely candidate to break through her ​​protective mechanism. The emotional armor is there that she actually has self-respect – in a world that does not value women unless they sacrifice everything for a man (Liu!). , it is extremely difficult is that Puccini himself did not manage to break through the male-centered and female-spirited stereotype. He argued that this reversal, from ice to warmth and love, would be the most passionate music ever written. After writing Liu’s death drove him still firm, and did not come forward before he died a few years later … Probably frustrated to leave their own goals unachieved. Perhaps Puccini himself not “hear” what it would go for. Was it easier to conclude by making Liù (the “other” woman – the one who has no responsibility to provide any real future) to a victim of love, than to see a powerful woman choose intimacy and vulnerability with a powerful man? And musically seduced us yet again of that unrequited love, self-sacrifice, and a seemingly innocent death is the very, very finest available. It felt perhaps even Puccini himself? Maybe you can not continue past something so extraordinarily beautiful that Liu’s death? Vocal’s role, at least as far as it is written by Puccini, beautifully carved in a high dramatic soprano. But the composers who took over after Puccini, Franco Alfano, falls head over heels for cliché to give the internal conflict darker timbres. Thus falls Turandot tone, and the essence of the character is also lost. Finding Turandot in these lower passages is really a challenge. Turandot reflects much that is unique in my voice. I can sink my teeth into her while knowing that there is so much to give. It is a blessing! Turandot is not like any other role.

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