Editing Turandot (section)

==Critical response==
While long recognised as the most tonally adventurous of Puccini's operas,<ref>Jonathan Christian Petty and Marshall Tuttle, [http://www.bpmonline.org.uk/bpm4-turandot.html "Tonal Psychology in Puccini's ''Turandot''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121100912/http://www.bpmonline.org.uk/bpm4-turandot.html |date=21 November 2008 }}, Center for Korean Studies, University of California, Berkeley and Langston University, 2001</ref> ''Turandot'' has also been considered a flawed masterpiece, and some critics have been hostile toward it. [[Joseph Kerman]] states that "Nobody would deny that dramatic potential can be found in this tale. Puccini, however, did not find it; his music does nothing to rationalize the legend or illuminate the characters."{{sfn|Kerman|1988|p=206}} Kerman also wrote that while ''Turandot'' is more "suave" musically than Puccini's earlier opera, ''[[Tosca]]'', "dramatically it is a good deal more depraved."{{sfn|Kerman|1988|p=205}} However, [[Sir Thomas Beecham]] once remarked that anything that Joseph Kerman said about Puccini "can safely be ignored".{{sfn|Carner|1958|p=460}}

Some of this criticism is possibly due to the standard Alfano ending (Alfano II), in which Liù's death is followed almost immediately by Calaf's "rough wooing" of Turandot, and the "bombastic" end to the opera. A later attempt at completing the opera was made, with the co-operation of the publishers, Ricordi, in 2002 by [[Luciano Berio]]. The Berio version is considered to overcome some of these criticisms, but critics such as Michael Tanner have failed to be wholly convinced by the new ending, noting that the criticism by the Puccini advocate [[Julian Budden]] still applies: "Nothing in the text of the final duet suggests that Calaf's love for Turandot amounts to anything more than a physical obsession: nor can the ingenuities of Simoni and Adami's text for 'Del primo pianto' convince us that the Princess's submission is any less hormonal."<ref>Tanner, Michael, [http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090628114501/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200303/ai_n9232503 "Hollow swan-song"], ''The Spectator'', 23 March 2003.</ref>

[[William Ashbrook|Ashbrook]] and Powers consider it was an awareness of this problem – an inadequate buildup for Turandot's change of heart, combined with an overly successful treatment of the secondary character (Liù) – which contributed to Puccini's inability to complete the opera.<ref name="Ashbrook and Powers2" /> Another alternative ending, written by Chinese composer Hao Wei Ya, has Calaf pursue Turandot but kiss her tenderly, not forcefully; and the lines beginning "Del primo pianto" (Of the first tears) are expanded into an aria where Turandot tells Calaf more fully about her change of heart.<ref>[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90037060 Chinese Composer Gives ''Turandot'' a Fresh Finale], NPR's ''All Things Considered'', 29 April 2008.</ref><ref name=Kensmith>[http://www.opera.co.uk/view-review.php?reviewID=136 A Princess Comes Home: Ken Smith explores how ''Turandot'' became China's national opera]. ''Opera'' magazine, December 2012.</ref><ref>"She (the princess) pledges to thwart any attempts of suitors because of an ancestor's abduction by a prince and subsequent death. She is not born cruel and is finally conquered by love. I will try to make Turandot more understandable and arouse the sympathy of Chinese audiences for her." Hao Wei Ya, [http://www.china.org.cn/english/LivinginChina/243209.htm A Princess Re-Born], ''China Daily'' 19 February 2008.</ref>

Concerning the compelling believability of the self-sacrificial Liù character in contrast to the two mythic protagonists, biographers note echoes in Puccini's own life. He had had a servant named Doria, whom his wife accused of sexual relations with Puccini. The accusations escalated until Doria killed herself. In ''Turandot'', Puccini lavished his attention on the familiar sufferings of Liù, as he had on his many previous suffering heroines. However, in the opinion of [[M. Owen Lee|Father Owen Lee]], Puccini was out of his element when it came to resolving the tale of his two allegorical protagonists. Finding himself completely outside his normal genre of ''[[verismo]]'', he was incapable of completely grasping and resolving the necessary elements of the [[mythology|mythic]], unable to "feel his way into the new, forbidding areas the myth opened up to him"<ref>[[M. Owen Lee|Lee, Father Owen]]. [http://archive.operainfo.org/intermissions/intermissionFeaturesDetails.cgi?id=27&language=1&int_page_id=236 "''Turandot'': Father Owen Lee Discusses Puccini's ''Turandot''."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110609175020/http://archive.operainfo.org/intermissions/intermissionFeaturesDetails.cgi?id=27&language=1&int_page_id=236 |date=9 June 2011 }} [[Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts|Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast]] Intermission Feature, 4 March 1961.</ref> – and thus unable to finish the opera in the two years before his unexpected death.