TURANDOT was the final masterpiece of Giacomo Puccini who died of throat cancer shortly before his 60th birthday.  A colleague, Franco Alfano, was able to finish the opera from sketches left by the composer. 

TURANDOT is different from any of Puccini's other operas.  Dramatically, all of the Puccini's operas before TURANDOT, including his other oriental opera, MADAMA BUTTERFLY, present human conflicts in a traditional Western European manner.  It is only his opera TURANDOT that consists of fantastical subject matter.  In the exotic "Forbidden City" of Ancient Peking there are daily decapitations and the large chorus of townspeople who are terrorized by these events observe and comment on the action of the heroic principal characters, following precisely the pattern of Greek myth.  Puccini based TURANDOT on a Chinese fable by Count Carlo Gozzi, reworked a bit by theater critic and playwright Renato Simoni.  The fable closely follows the Greek myth OEDIPUS AND THE SPHINX.  The Sphinx, a terrible winged monster with the face of a woman, posted itself at an intersection on the road between Thebes and Delphi.  She devoured all who passed by because no one could solve the riddles she posed.  Finally the young hero called Oedipus was able to solve the riddles, for which he was granted the hand of the Queen of Thebes. 

In his book THE POWER OF MYTH, the late Joseph Campbell wrote, "The purpose of Greek, Latin and biblical literature has always been to serve as bits of information from ancient times which have to do with themes that support human life, the deep inner problems and passages in life and transformations that we all experience as we confront new challenges.  Myths are the stories of the search for meaning and truth, and the understanding of how to cope with destiny and death."  Within the drama of Puccini's final masterpiece, we find mythological images presented as characters that reveal parts of our own personalities and inner struggles with life.  As we witness the challenges and fate of each of the players through the drama, we are permitted to feel and experience the same pain, suffering, tension, challenge and rapture, transformation of consciousness that each character experiences!

In THE ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, author Erich Neumann presents an in-depth examination of mythological images and their relationship to the development of human consciousness.  Neumann explains that the "collective unconscious" is a body of fantasy images, "archetypes" or "primordial images" whose evolution within the human psyche determines the development of the ego and the maturation of the personality.  In Puccini's TURANDOT we find a number of different "primordial images" at work that underlie the "transformation myth."  As we confront these fantasy images, supported and made even more profound by Puccini's music, we pass through a series of archetypal stages of consciousness that serve to illuminate the true meaning of the drama. 

In TURANDOT, Prince Calaf, has set out on an adventure that follows the typical hero sequence of actions.  Ping, Pang and Pong are symbolic images that represent the worldly temptations along the hero's path.  Calaf escapes the threat of death and dismemberment (having his head chopped off) by refusing to succumb to temptation and by conquering the heart of Turandot.  In doing so, he also liberates the entire city of Peking and restores peace to a people who had been sentenced to a nightmarish state of perpetual death and execution where they could find no peace, no "sleep," under Turandot's decree.  By cutting off the heads of all of her would-be husbands, Turandot sought to destroy the awful power that was inhibiting her own evolution in life, the psychic image of a conquering Prince who had once raped and murdered her ancestor.  Because of the unshakeable devotion of Calaf and the love and sacrifice of Liu, Turandot is able to see a "new image" and come to the consciousness that goodness does in fact exist in the world, and that it is safe for her to fall in love.  The slave girl Liu is yet another symbolic character or "fantasy image" representing all that is holy and sacred.  She is a "savior figure" whose death permits new life to emerge.  Liu reunites Calaf with his father, the aged Timur, whose character symbolizes the wisdom, balance and depth that comes with maturity.  Timur advises Calaf and gives him a psychological "center."  As Timur grieves over the body of the dead Liu and cries out that he will follow her into heaven, he releases the grief, suffering and loss common to all mankind, and reassures us that there is an after life where the death of the human body has no victory.  As the father of Calaf, Timur also represents the origins of Calaf - his true self.  Liu has lead Calaf to "himself" and to the realization of his potential.  All of the qualities of the loving, humble Liu are then resurrected and reborn in the newly transformed Turandot.  Calaf succeeds in completing the cycle of the hero and the City of Peking is restored to a place of peace.