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Turandot

Giacomo Puccini (1858 – 1924)

07
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.

07
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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14
DEC

Advents-Verlosung: Das 14. Fensterchen

This much can be revealed today: This third weekend of Advent belongs to jazz. Since 2005, the BigBand of the Deutsche Oper Berlin has been a permanent fixture in the programme: be it at big concerts with Katharine Mehrling, Madeline Bell, Lyambiko, Jocelyn B. Smith, Pe Werner, Bill Ramsey, Paul Kuhn, Georgie Fame, Jiggs Whigham, Jeff Cascaro, Till Brönner or Richard Galliano as soloists. But concerts also regularly take place in the Tischlerei with smaller formations, and audio books for children are also created here. The most recent release – following on from ‘The Jungle Book’ and ‘The Ballad of Robin Hood’ – is the audio book ‘The Canterville Ghost’.

Today we are giving away 5 CDs of ‘The Canterville Ghost’ based on Oscar Wilde's fairy tale. If you would like to be one of the winners, please send an email to advent@deutscheoperberlin.de today with the subject ‘The 14th little window’.

For generations, Canterville Castle has been haunted, but that doesn't stop the American ambassador Hiram B. Otis from acquiring the old building and moving in with his family. As modern, enlightened Americans, they don't believe British ghost stories. And so hard times begin for the old castle ghost, who has never experienced such disrespect in all his centuries.

Musicians Martin Auer and Rüdiger Ruppert have created an impressive narrative concert for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. While Christian Brückner tells the story of the disaffected castle ghost, the wild jazz orchestra creates an atmospheric backdrop of horror. A sound work of art for the whole family!



Closing date: 14 December 2024. The winners will be informed by email on 16 December 2024. The CDs will be sent by post. The judges' decision is final.