Good Sense

On 23 October, as the last opera of the 2012-2013 season, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma unveiled a new production of Turandot by Giacomo Puccini with a special touch: it ended where the composer stopped writing the score, as Toscanini decided to do for the world premiere at La Scala on 25 April 1926. This means before the last scene -- the long duet between the 'icy' Chinese Princess and the passionate Tartar prince in love with her -- composed by Franco Alfano, on the basis of Puccini's own sketches, then revised by Arturo Toscanini himself. More recently, Luciano Berio wrote a new finale for the opera and only a few years ago the young Chinese composer Hao Weiya made his own attempt at the last scene. For several years, Italian theatres have utilized Alfano's finale as revised by Toscanini...