Turandot Tickets

Discover Puccini's exotic opera, Turandot

Turandot is a Puccini opera that the composer failed to complete on account of his untimely death. It was finished by others in one of two version, neither of which has been held to be the definitive. It's an exotic opera, resplendent with extravagant costumes and makeup, for you to enjoy when you buy or sell Turandot tickets on StubHub.

A compendium of Persian tales in opera

Turandot was based on a compendium of Persian stories that was discovered and translated in 1722 by François Pétis de la Croix, "The Book of One Thousand and One Days". It's a classic tale of a royal suitor having to answer riddles, complete challenges and prove himself to be strong and pure of heart in order to win the hand of a princess, set in China. having been left unfinished by the great composer, a feud broke out over who should be accorded the honour of trying to complete it from the sketch notes that Puccini had left. Eventually Franco Alfano was commissioned, however his version of the ending was widely criticised by opera figures of no less stature than Toscanini. As a result, the latter wrote an edited version of Alfano's work, debuted at the venerable La Scala opera house in Milan. It is also the version that has survived to become the one that is has usually been performed when the opera has been staged in the modern era. It's this version that you can likely expect when you have Turandot tickets, although it isn't unheard of for Alfano's version to be performed now and then.

More Madame Butterfly than The Mikado

Turandot was Puccini's attempt to authentically portray what to him was an exotic culture, that of China, in the format of classical Western opera. He would do the same thing in his more celebrated work, Madame Butterfly. This style of opera is a far cry from other lighter traditions that have injected Oriental culture to create a more exotic element. There's no hint of the camp over-the-top operatic slapstick of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado, for instance. Turandot experienced something of a performance revival in the late 2010s and has been staged at festivals and opera houses across the world in more recent times. Highlights have included the production at the annual Salzburg Festspiele (Salzburg Festival). The performance received mixed critical reviews, but these were largely a resurrection of the debate around the opera's ending. Audiences received it very well. Get yourself some Turandot tickets on StubHub and discover Puccini's lesser-known works.