Trivia / Turandot

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• All-Star Cast: As Turandot, Calaf, Liu, and Timur...
  • Audio Recordings:
    • 1957, conducted by Tullio Serafin: Maria Callas, Eugenio Fernandi, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicola Zaccaria
    • 1959, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf: Birgit Nilsson, Jussi Björling, Renata Tebaldi, Giorgio Tozzi
    • 1964, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni: Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Galina Vishnevskaya, Nicola Zaccaria
    • 1965, conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli: Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Renata Scotto, Bonaldo Giaiotti
    • 1972, conducted by Zubin Mehta: Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti, Montserrat Caballé, Nicolai Ghiaurov
    • 1977, conducted by Riccardo Chailly (live from the San Francisco Opera): Montserrat Caballé, Luciano Pavarotti, Leona Mitchell, Giorgio Tozzi
    • 1984, conducted by Herbert von Karajan: Katia Ricciarelli, Plácido Domingo, Barbara Hendricks, Ruggero Raimondi
  • Video Recordings:
    • 1983, conducted by Maurizio Arena at the Arena di Verona: Ghena Dimitrova, Nicola Martinucci, Cecilia Gasdia, Ivo Vinco
    • 1988, conducted by James Levine at the Met Opera: Éva Marton, Plácido Domingo, Leona Mitchell, Paul Plishka
    • 1998, conducted by Zubin Mehta (Turandot at the Forbidden City): Giovanna Casolla, Sergej Larin, Barbara Frittoli, Carlo Colombara, dir. Zubin Mehta and lavishly and authentically produced by Zhang Yimou^note who also staged the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Olympic Games.
• Dawson Casting: As often happens in opera, Turandot is supposed to be a young girl but it's an extremely difficult part to sing and is usually not taken by anyone younger than 35. Inverted with Timur, Calaf's aged father, who's often played by a singer at least a decade younger than his supposed "son".
• Died During Production: As said above, Puccini died while the opera was incomplete, setting off a controversial completion thread. He'd wanted his friend Riccardo Zandonai to finish it from his notes, but got overruled by his own son and the publishers, who chose Puccini's student Franco Alfano instead (Alfano seemed to have a similar style for lavish extravaganzas and they thought he'd attract more people/$$$). And when the director of its premiere (Arturo Toscanini), who'd wanted Zandonai and detested Alfano's work as a hatchet job, reached the point in the music where Puccini had died, he stopped the performance to tell the audience "Here the Maestro laid down his pen".
  • A witness speaking in 1974 remembered Toscanini saying Qui, il Maestro fini. (Here, the Maestro finished.)
• Given that this is supposed to be a massive spectacle, watch for Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever. The San Francisco production in 1977 had a huge Buddha statue◊, which actually moved and wept Tears of Blood when Calaf kissed the Princess into life. In Florida in 2010, the Emperor's throne was held in the claws of a gigantic dragon◊ who took up half the stage.
• On one performance in Boston in 1961, Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli were singing the big high C in Act II, when Nilsson held her high C for longer than Corelli. Corelli, already known for his crippling stage fright, tried to get out of singing the third act, but Met Opera general manager Rudolph Bing convinced him to bite Nilsson in the neck during the Big Damn Kiss. It is unclear whether Corelli bit Nilsson or simply told her about it^note  Both Franco Corelli and Birgit Nilsson denied that he bit her., but after the performance, Nilsson, known for being a Deadpan Snarker, left Bing a telegram stating that she'd have to cancel the next two performances because she came down with rabies.
• Referenced by...: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation has a scene in the Vienna State Opera, and Turandot is the featured show.

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