Editing Turandot (section)

==Composition history==
The beginnings of ''Turandot'' can likely be found in ''[[Haft Peykar]]'', a twelfth-century epic by the Persian poet [[Nizami Ganjavi|Nizami]]. One of the stories in ''Haft Peykar'' features a Russian princess.<ref name="Nizami2015">{{cite book |author=Nizami |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v0CFCgAAQBAJ |title=Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance |date=21 August 2015 |publisher=Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated |isbn=978-1-62466-446-5 |page=xviii}}</ref> In 1722, [[François Pétis de la Croix]] published his ''[[Les Mille et un jours]]'' (The Thousand and One Days), a collection of stories which were purportedly taken from Middle Eastern folklore and mythologies.<ref name=":0">[http://www.theopera101.com/operas/turandot/ based on a story by the Persian poet Nizami] Retrieved 23 November 2016.</ref> One of these stories, believed to be inspired by Nizami, features a cold princess named Turandokht.<ref>[[Karl Gustav Vollmoeller]], [http://manybooks.net/titles/vollmollerk2673026730-8.html ''Turandot, Princess of China: A Chinoiserie in Three Acts''], 1913, online at manybooks.net. Retrieved 8 July 2011</ref> However, it has been speculated that many of de la Croix's 'translated' stories were his own original creations, with no actual basis in Middle Eastern cultures.<ref name=":0" /> De la Croix's story was adapted into a play, [[Turandot (Gozzi)|''Turandot'']], by the Italian playwright [[Carlo Gozzi]] in 1762, which was then adapted by [[Friedrich Schiller]] into another play in 1801. It was Schiller's version that inspired Puccini to write the opera.<ref name="schiller">{{Gutenberg|no=6505|name=Turandot, Prinzessin von China by Friedrich Schiller|bullet=none}}. ''Freely translated from Schiller by Sabilla Novello:'' {{Gutenberg|no=26553|name=Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx by Friedrich Schiller|bullet=none}}.</ref>

[[File:MaiNessun.jpg|thumbnail|450px|"In questa reggia" – quotation from the reduced score]]
Puccini began working on ''Turandot'' in March 1920 after meeting with librettists [[Giuseppe Adami]] and [[Renato Simoni]]. In his impatience, he began composition in January 1921, before Adami and Simoni had produced the text for the libretto.{{sfn|Ashbrook|Powers|1991|p=65}} As with ''[[Madama Butterfly]]'', Puccini strove for a semblance of authenticity by using music from the region, even commissioning a set of thirteen custom-made gongs.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/arts/music/09vanhyning.html "Howard Van Hyning, Percussionist and Gong Enthusiast, Dies at 74"] by [[Margalit Fox]], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 8 November 2010. Accessed 9 November 2010.</ref> Baron Edoardo Fassini-Camossi, the former Italian diplomat to China, gave Puccini a music box that played 4 Chinese melodies.<ref name=CUtz2021>{{cite book|title=Musical Composition in the Context of Globalization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KXEjEAAAQBAJ&dq=Fassini+Camossi+turandot&pg=PA198|author=Christian Utz|date=2021| publisher=transcript Verlag |isbn = 9783839450956}}</ref> Puccini incorporated three of these melodies into his opera, the most memorable of which is the folk melody "[[Mo Li Hua|Mò Li Hūa (茉莉花)]]" ('Jasmine Flower').<ref>{{cite web |author=W. Anthony Sheppard |date=17 June 2012 |title=Music Box as Muse to Puccini's 'Butterfly' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/arts/music/puccini-opera-echoes-a-music-box-at-the-morris-museum.html |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> "Mò Li Hūa" serves as a [[leitmotif]] for Princess Turandot's splendor.<ref name=SludgeWiki>{{cite book|last1=Ashbrook |first1=William |last2= Harold |first2= Powers |date= 23 April 1991 |title=Puccini's Turandot: The End of the Great Tradition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pV6YDwAAQBAJ |publisher= Princeton University Press |isbn= 9780691027128}}</ref> In total, eight of the themes from ''Turandot'' appear to be based on traditional Chinese music and anthems.{{sfn|Ashbrook|Powers|1991|loc=Chapter 4}}

By March 1924, Puccini had completed the opera up to the final duet. However, he was dissatisfied with the text of the final duet, and did not continue until 8 October, when he chose Adami's fourth version of the duet text. Two days later, he was diagnosed with throat [[cancer]]. Puccini seems to have had some inkling of the seriousness of his condition: before leaving for [[Brussels]] for treatment, he visited Arturo Toscanini and begged him, "Don't let my Turandot die."{{sfn|Carner|1958|p=403}} He died of a heart attack on 29 November 1924.{{sfn|Carner|1958|p=417}}

===Completion of the score after Puccini's death===
When Puccini died, the first two of the three acts were fully composed, including the orchestration. Puccini had composed and fully orchestrated Act Three up until Liù's death and funeral cortege. In the sense of finished music, this was the last music composed by Puccini.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fisher|first=Burton D.|title=Puccini Companion: The Glorious Dozen: Turandot|year=2007|publisher=Opera Journeys Publishing|page=24}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Ashbrook|first=William|title=The Operas of Puccini|url=https://archive.org/details/operasofpuccini0000ashb|url-access=registration|year=1985|publisher=Cornell University Press by arrangement with Oxford University Press|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/operasofpuccini0000ashb/page/224 224]|isbn=9780801493096}}</ref> He left behind 36 pages of sketches on 23 sheets for the end of ''Turandot''. Some sketches were in the form of "piano-vocal" or "short score", including vocal lines with "two to four staves of accompaniment with occasional notes on orchestration."<ref name="Ashbrook and Powers3">{{harvnb|Ashbrook|Powers|1991|p=224}}</ref> These sketches provided music for some, but not all, of the final portion of the libretto.

Puccini left instructions that [[Riccardo Zandonai]] should finish the opera. Puccini's son Tonio objected, and eventually [[Franco Alfano]] was chosen to flesh out the sketches after [[Vincenzo Tommasini]] (who had completed [[Arrigo Boito|Boito]]'s ''[[Nerone (Boito)|Nerone]]'' after the composer's death) and [[Pietro Mascagni]] were rejected. Puccini's publisher Tito Ricordi II decided on Alfano because his opera ''[[Sakùntala|La leggenda di Sakùntala]]'' resembled ''Turandot'' in its setting and heavy orchestration.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.concertoperaboston.org/turandot2009.html| title = ''Turandot'': Concert Opera Boston}}</ref> Alfano provided a first version of the ending with a few passages of his own, and even a few sentences added to the libretto, which was not considered complete even by Puccini. After the severe criticisms by Ricordi and the conductor Arturo Toscanini, he was forced to write a second, strictly censored version that followed Puccini's sketches more closely, to the point where he did not set some of Adami's text to music because Puccini had not indicated how he wanted it to sound. Ricordi's real concern was not the quality of Alfano's work; he wanted the end of ''Turandot'' to sound as if it had been written by Puccini. Of this version, about three minutes were cut for performance by Toscanini, and it is this shortened version that is usually performed today.