Puccini’s last opera is all about riddles. The Emperor of China rules over the Forbidden City of Peking. His unmarried daughter, the Princess Turandot, has refused her hand to all her princely suitors by putting them to a test. She sets them three riddles; if they do not answer them correctly,...
In the ethereal afterlife, there is no time or space. The shades, freed from their earthly cares, celebrate the greatness of the Goddess of Truth. Shrouded in eternal glory, she sits triumphant, flanked by Beauty and Goodness, while at her feet lies Suffering in her mantle of blood. In the midst of...
Don Giovanni was commissioned by the Prague Opera immediately after the success of The Marriage of Figaro: Mozart and Da Ponte wanted to build on their success and chose a subject that had triumphed just a few weeks earlier in Venice, a Don Giovanni composed by Giuseppe Gazzaniga. Revisiting the...
