Turandot (Busoni)

Turandot
Opera by Ferruccio Busoni
Poster for the premiere
Librettist	Ferruccio Busoni
Language	German
Premiere	11 May 1917 (1917-05-11) Zurich Opera House

Turandot (BV 273) is a 1917 opera with spoken dialogue and in two acts by Ferruccio Busoni. Busoni prepared his own libretto, in German, based on the play by Count Carlo Gozzi. The music for Busoni's opera is based on the incidental music, and the associated Turandot Suite (BV 248), which Busoni had written in 1905 for a production of Gozzi's play. The opera is often performed as part of a double bill with Busoni's earlier one-act opera Arlecchino.

Carlo Gozzi's play Turandot first appeared in 1762. It was originally written to be performed in the small theatre of San Samuele in Venice, and was deliberately written in the Commedia dell'arte style as a reaction to the more modern, realistic plays of Goldoni and others.

Schiller made an adapted translation of Turandot which was published in 1802.Weber wrote his Incidental music for Turandot, Op. 37, for a production of this play. It was composed in 1809 and included the earlier Overtura cinese ("Chinese Overture"), which he had composed on a Chinese theme in 1805. Busoni thought that between them Schiller and Weber had ruined a masterpiece of Italian literature.

Gozzi's Turandot - in one form or another - occupied Busoni at various times in the years 1904-1917. He was very fond of fantastical and magical tales: his immediately preceding work was the Piano Concerto, Op. 39 BV247, which included music from an unfinished adaptation of Adam Oehlenschläger's Aladdin. In 1904 Busoni began sketching incidental music for Gozzi's Chinese fable. He also arranged a concert suite, which was first performed in 1905 and published in 1906. A production of Gozzi's play with Busoni's music was mounted by Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911, and for the second and last time in London in 1913. For more information on the composition of the incidental music and the suite, and the productions of the play with Busoni's music, see the article on the Turandot Suite.