'Turandot' reborn: A story of war, peace and a princess misread for a century

Conductor Roberto Abbado and soprano Eva Płonka [Yonhap]

This is not a conventional love story. For a century, countless reinterpretations have cycled through the same premise — a hero conquering the heart of an ice princess — but that framework is now being set aside. This summer's "Turandot" strips away the love-story veneer to reveal a narrative about war, violence, peace and coexistence. It is a production that rewrites, in the language of today, the unfinished masterpiece Puccini clung to until the very end of his life.

Director Jeong Seon-yeong, who is helming the Seoul Arts Center production of "Turandot" (July 22–26), declared at a recent press conference that "this work is a project to end war."

The production is the third installment in the Seoul Arts Center's ongoing grand opera series, now in its third consecutive year. Following "Norma," presented in a Royal Opera House version, and the original opera "Spirit of Water," "Turandot" arrives entirely reimagined under the hand of a Korean director.

Roberto Abbado, music director of the Korea National Symphony Orchestra, will lead Puccini's sweeping score. Having already introduced Korean audiences to the essence of bel canto opera through "Norma," this marks his first full-length opera on the podium since taking up his post with the orchestra. The cast is equally distinguished. Tenor Baek Seok-jong makes his domestic opera debut, joining La Scala principal soprano Eva Płonka and celebrated Korean opera stars Seo Seon-yeong, Kim Young-woo and Hwang Su-mi on the same stage.

'All we have is a torso': Abbado on Puccini's unfinished genius

"All we have is a torso."

That is how conductor Roberto Abbado described "Turandot." Puccini died before completing the opera — leaving behind, in Abbado's image, a sculpture with its arms and legs severed, a magnificent body without its whole.

The work holds particular personal significance for Abbado. "Turandot" was the first Puccini opera he ever conducted, in Barcelona in 1984, and that performance was later released as a recording on Sony Classical.

"In the end, death won out over Puccini's work," Abbado said with a laugh. "I don't have extensive experience with 'Turandot,' but when I listened back to the recording after all these years, I thought it wasn't so bad."

Puccini composed through Act III, Scene 1 — the death of Liù — before he died. The final duet between Calaf and Turandot, and the opera's closing pages, existed only as sketches. Franco Alfano completed the work on commission from the publisher. At the premiere, however, conductor Arturo Toscanini stopped the performance at the point of Liù's death, turned to the audience and said, "Here Puccini died."

Conductor Roberto Abbado and director Jeong Seon-yeong [Yonhap]

Taking on the unfinished posthumous work, Abbado said working on "Puccini's final masterpiece in its centenary year is a privilege," and that while multiple endings exist, he considers the version completed by Franco Alfano the best available. He did, however, flag one concern. "Puccini wrote in a letter that the opera would end pianissimo, but the ending we have is a massive fortissimo," Abbado said. "That is the exact opposite of what Puccini intended — though this is entirely my personal belief."

The story unfolding over that music carries a new message. Director Jeong said that while the opera "appears on the surface to be a love story between a prince and a princess set in China, the music contains a lamentation for war and a human prayer for peace."

The production's most distinctive element is its contemporary reinterpretation of the opera's structural backbone — the three riddles. The first riddle, "Hope," is read as the ideal humanity pursues; the second as the passion and will to turn that hope into reality. The third riddle, "the ice that sets you on fire," is expanded beyond romantic love into a message about overcoming violence and domination to arrive at peace and coexistence.

Director Jeong does not read the final kiss between Turandot and Calaf as victory or submission. She defines it as a love that wins by losing — the moment one surrenders first, without trying to defeat the other, allowing Turandot to finally lower her defenses and release her fear.

"If you keep trying to win, war repeats itself," Jeong said. "But once someone begins to lose first, a path opens where everyone wins. That is peace."

Another highlight of the production is the Chinese-inflected melody that runs throughout the opera. Abbado said "Puccini directly borrowed only eight Chinese folk melodies, but composed nearly all the remaining music to sound Chinese as well — and that is Puccini's genius," he added with admiration.

The ending Abbado envisions for "Turandot" would be music of dissolution and surrender — something like the final movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 or Richard Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration." "But as I said, this is purely my personal speculation," Abbado added. "We work with what we have been given."

Soprano Seo Seon-yeong speaks at a press conference for the opera "Turandot" held at Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on Friday. [Yonhap]

'Turan is close to present-day Iran': Płonka on a princess turned monster

The singers, too, brought a reading of Turandot that diverged sharply from tradition. Soprano Eva Płonka, who has performed the title role at major opera houses around the world, said the work's origins lie in the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami's epic narrative.

Turandot, she said, bears a Persian name — "Turandokht," meaning "daughter of Turan." "Turan is a region close to present-day Iran," Płonka said. "She is not a monstrous princess but a philosophical being who symbolizes the human self and transformation."

"'Turandot' is more allegory than human being. This work could just as well be called 'The Journey of Calaf' — it is a story about Calaf's spiritual growth." (Eva Płonka)

Płonka said every audience member who faces Turandot is, in a sense, Calaf — discovering how to transcend death and find a way to keep living through the cycle of life and rebirth. "The act of beheading, in spiritual texts, means losing one's identity," she said. "It is only by seeing the head that we recognize who a person is. We can only be transformed by letting go of identity — the ego."

Płonka also raised concerns about Alfano's ending. "In the scene where Calaf and Turandot kiss, the music expresses something musically horrifying, and if it means only one thing, it could be read as rape," she said. She went on to say that "'Turandot' is a very philosophical and beautiful story that 17th-century Europeans — Italians — distorted into a misunderstood tale. In many productions, this powerful woman who ruled the vast land of Turan has been turned into something strange, a monster. Turan is a region close to present-day Iran."

Soprano Seo Seon-yeong, taking on the title role for the first time, approached the character with warmth and humanity. Having spent much of her career singing the fragile, self-sacrificing Liù, she said she once struggled to understand Turandot. "I couldn't understand why she was just a woman who screamed like that," Seo said. "But as I researched the role deeply, my thinking changed completely. Turandot is not a cold woman who rejects love — she is a wounded human being who had no choice but to defend herself desperately against the trauma left by past war and violence." The arc, as Seo sees it, is one of healing: a person who shut out and pushed away the world out of fear, finally disarming and surrendering herself through genuine love.

The heroic, near-divine figure of Calaf is played by tenor Baek Seok-jong, celebrated on international stages for what has been called "the divinity of Calaf." This production marks his first full-length opera debut in his home country. Having performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Royal Opera House in London, among other leading venues, Baek said "there is no stage more special or nerve-wracking than singing in front of my parents and Korean audiences."

Baek called Calaf his signature role. "It is not only the role that suits my voice best, but Calaf's unshakeable character — crying out for hope even in despair — genuinely resembles who I am," he said.

Tenor Kim Young-woo brings a different kind of journey to the role. For years he played the comic supporting trio of Ping, Pong and Pang on German stages before finally stepping into the lead as Calaf. "When I was doing Ping, Pong and Pang, they had so much stage time that I thought they were the real protagonists," Kim said with a laugh. "But when it comes down to actually playing Calaf, I realized this opera is entirely Calaf's vast narrative." Those years spent quietly watching and breathing alongside leading performers as a supporting player, he said, are now shaping a deeper Calaf.

"This will be roughly my 70th performance of 'Turandot,' about 50 of which I spent on German stages in the small role of Ping," Kim said. "Standing in a supporting role and watching my colleagues play Calaf beside me — that is where I nurtured my dream. So for me, the role of Calaf will carry my whole life in it."

shee@heraldcorp.com