Tempo Data from Broadcast Performances of Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera, 1961 – 2009

The works of well-known composers active as recording technology developed
and as the recording industry emerged thus make ideal case studies.
Giacomo Puccini is uniquely suited to a study of tradition through
technological means: he has perhaps the best-documented relationship to
advances in technology and the resulting shift in entertainment aesthetics
of any composer of this era. Of his twelve operas, Turandot is the only
major work whose premiere post-dates the advent of electronically captured
and controlled sound recording, and thus position at the crossroads of
technical practices and social aesthetics stemming from technological
conditions in multimedia entertainment in the 1920s. Of the major opera
houses in the world, New York’s Metropolitan Opera has perhaps the most
comprehensively documented performance history. The launch of “The
Metropolitan Opera Archives” online with open access in 2005 made it the
most accessible source of information for operatic performing history in
any opera house in the world. By making this information publicly and
readily available, the Met made significant strides in democratizing opera
in a way similar to what recordings had done nearly a century earlier.
With this new tool, fans now had the ability to deepen their learning and,
because of this, their enjoyment of opera at the Met. Thus, by extending
the social activity of learning about opera audiences to the digital (and
therefore widely accessible) realm, the Met sought to thrust itself into
the forefront of the operatic social sphere in addition to its broadcast
offerings. Many recordings of these transmissions are available online
through The Metropolitan Opera On Demand, while the Rodgers and
Hammerstein Archive of Recorded Sound at the New York Public Library
serves as the official repository for hard and digital copy recordings of
the broadcasts. Within this opera, six moments are most appropriate for
examination for both practical and dramaturgical reasons. Arias in
Puccini’s operas offer dramatic pauses for characters; they are moments of
emotional exposition, or the result of reflecting on surrounding events.
Both of these types of arias occur in Turandot. Liù’s first aria,
“Signore, ascolta!”, exhibits both functions, as she reacts emotionally to
Calaf’s stated intent to answer Turandot’s riddles. Calaf’s response, “Non
piangere, Liù,” gives him the opportunity to respond tenderly to Liù, and
show concern for his father, Timur, by requesting she remain if the prince
surrenders his life. Turandot’s entrance aria (in Act II), “In questa
reggia,” recounts the reasons for her riddles and brutality – her desire
for vengeance on behalf of her ancestress Lou-o-Ling. “Nessun dorma!” is
Calaf’s reflection on Turandot’s commandment that no one in the realm
shall sleep until she knows his name and shows his resolve in conquering
the princess. Liù’s suicide aria, “Tu che di gel sei cinta,” reveals both
her crumbling determination under the duress of torture and her desire for
Calaf to win the hand of Turandot. In addition to these arias, one other
moment of musical practicality and dramaturgical significance merit
consideration for its performance traditions: the dramatic climax of acts
II. In Act II’s "Riddle scene," where Turandot poses each of her
three riddles and Calaf successfully answers them, fermatas precede the
statement of each riddle and Calaf’s response to the first and third. The
time performers devote to observing these fermatas in relationship to the
surrounding musical fabric can indicate varying degrees of gravity,
levity, or expediency as the opera’s second dramatic conflict emerges from
the resolution of its first.