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Turandot

Giacomo Puccini (1858 – 1924)

14
Friday
February
19:30 - 22:15
D prices: € 144.00 / 112.00 / 82.00 / 50.00 / 30.00
Buy tickets
Information about the work

Dramma lyrico in three acts
Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni,
after the play by Carlo Gozzi
First performed on 25th April 1929 in Milan
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 13th September 2008

2 hrs 30 mins / 1 interval

In Italian with German and English surtitles

Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance

recommended from 15 years
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The Children’s Chorus is sponsored by Dobolino e.V.

14
Friday
February
19:30 - 22:15
D prices: € 144.00 / 112.00 / 82.00 / 50.00 / 30.00
Buy tickets
the content

About the work
A nation is cowed by its princess. Turandot, beautiful and fascinating representative of a royal dynasty, presides over a gruesome ritual: only her marriage to a suitor will bring an end to the violence, but no would-be bridegroom has yet managed to solve the riddles. The same old spectacle plays out, ending in yet another execution, until Calaf, the son of a deposed ruler from a foreign land, unexpectedly answers the riddles correctly. He then turns the tables on Turandot, forcing her to answer his own question if she wants to steal out of her obligation. Puccini’s times are changing rapidly, the art world is going through drastic transformation and new, abstract forms are being coined to reflect modern-day experience. And the composer, in his early 60s, is again trying to break new ground.

Puccini spent the last four years of his life working on TURANDOT, based on a fairy tale by Carlo Gozzi [1762]. The score was his richest and altogether most dissonant. Far from being the soundtrack to a cutesy picture of a doll-like China, the exotic music provided the backdrop to a world suffused in an atmosphere of unimaginable cruelty. Try as he might, Puccini never did settle on a resolution to his drama. The composer who was ever leery of happy endings never managed to escape from the dead-end that he’d created for himself through Liù’s sacrifice and the imminent pairing of Turandot and Calaf. The question of how the two might ever discover some common ground remained unanswered. Puccini was variously intrigued and repelled by the idea of presenting of an all-encompassing love as a means to redemption in the face of everything that speaks against it – and could not bring himself to paint such a utopia. He left only a fragment behind when he died and the Ricordi publishing house brought in the composer Franco Alfano to complete the opera, based on sketches left behind by Puccini.


About the production
Lorenzo Fioroni’s production sets the action of the story in a fairy-tale realm of indeterminable period but one which nonetheless is reminiscent of modern-day dictatorships. The riddle and execution scenes are dwelt on and give the impression that violence plays a ritualistic, quasi-religious role. Pitted against this is the desire, expressed repeatedly by the elite and the plebs, to end the oppression and see all groups reconciled. It is on this taut spectrum between violent rule and a yearning for love that Calaf and Turandot circle each other. Yet instead of pouring oil on troubled waters, the new couple usher in a new era of terror.

Fioroni rummages in the psychologies of the main protagonists and discovers in both a marked tendency towards violence. Calaf, too, is the scion of a former despot and, by looking on as Liù sacrifices herself for him, shows that saving face and achieving his goals is more important to him than saving lives. And it is this area of unscrupulous overlap that makes his final pact with Turandot plausible. And so it goes: their unfolding passion is reflected not in an overturning of the brutal system but in a continuation of tyranny.

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05
DEC

Adventskalender in der Tischlerei: Das 5. Fensterchen

Today in the Tischlerei: ‘Rossini, Liszt and more’
with Kangyoon Shine Lee (tenor) and Songyeon Catarina Kim (piano)
5pm / Tischlerei
Duration: approx. 25 minutes / free admission


The evening begins with musical declarations of love: love is illuminated in all its facets – from the idealised, the yearning to the devoted and the melancholy – in three songs by Franz Liszt and an aria from Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA. Franz Liszt's ‘Enfant, si j'etais roi’ (‘Child, if I were king’) and ‘Oh! Quand je dors’ (‘Oh! When I sleep’) are settings of poems by Victor Hugo. In the first, the beloved is given everything imaginable – but it can never be enough. The second poem describes a nocturnal vision of the beloved, who appears like an angel, kisses the sleeping person and fills them with heavenly love. Liszt's ‘Liebestraum Nr. 3’ (‘Oh dear, as long as you can love’) is one of a series of three songs that Liszt later arranged in a purely instrumental form and which became emblematic of romantic piano music. The original text was written by Ferdinand Freiligrath and deals with the transience of love and the resulting need to cherish and cultivate it in the here and now. You will hear the Korean pianist Songyeon Catarina Kim at the piano. She then lovingly accompanies our ensemble member Kangyoon Shine Lee in an aria that he will sing again on our main stage from 31 March 2025, when he takes on the role of Count Almaviva in Katharina Thalbach's production of Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA: the cavatina ‘Ecco, ridente in cielo’. In it, Almaviva sings about the beauty of the morning and his ardent love for Rosina – it is a lyrical and romantic beginning to an otherwise predominantly comedic opera. It is followed by the song ‘La danza’ from Rossini's collection of songs ‘Les soirées musicales’, published about 20 years later, which describes the joyful hustle and bustle of a Neapolitan festival. The musical basis for this song is the tarantella, a fast, rhythmic folk dance from southern Italy. The programme will conclude with a contemplative Christmas favourite, ‘O Holy Night’.

Lyric tenor Kangyoon Shine Lee was born in Seoul. He first graduated from the Korea National University of Arts before studying with Kammersänger Prof. Roman Trekel at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin from 2022. In 2021, Kangyoon Shine Lee won the Belvedere Competition and received an engagement at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He made his house debut on 27 December 2022 as Almaviva in Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA and also sang in DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE. In the 2024/25 season, he will be part of the ensemble here at the theatre and can be heard in roles such as Tamino in Mozart's MAGIC FLUTE and the children's version THE FAIRY TALE OF THE MAGIC FLUTE, as Count von Lerma / DON CARLO, Cavalier Belfiore / IL VIAGGIO A REIMS, Malcolm / MACBETH, Walther von der Vogelweide / TANNHÄUSER and Pang / TURANDOT.

The South Korean pianist Songyeon Catarina Kim studied piano at Kyunghee University in Seoul. She has won numerous Korean and international competitions. Since 2021, she has been studying Lied interpretation with Prof. Wolfram Rieger at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. She is currently studying chamber music with Prof. Wolfram Rieger as part of her concert exam. During her studies, she was a répétiteur in lessons with KS Prof. Roman Trekel, Prof. Anna Korondi, KS Prof. Ewa Wolak, Prof. Martin Bruns and Prof. Christine Schäfer, as well as a répétiteur in masterclasses with KS Brigitte Fassbaender and KS Prof. Thomas Quasthoff. She has also worked as a répétiteur for scenic instruction at the Immling Festival, the Darmstadt Theatre and the Erfurt Theatre. In the 2024/25 season, she will work as a répétiteur at IMMMERMEEEHR at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.