Finales of Turandot: Puccini’s Last Act

• Utgivningsdatum: 2026-09-21
• Mått: 156 x 234 x 22 mm
• Vikt: 750 g
• Format: Inbunden
• Språk: Engelska
• Serie: Routledge Research in Music
• Antal sidor: 300
• Förlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd
• ISBN: 9781041047513

• Opera
• Musikhistoria
• Tonsättare och låtskrivare

Deborah Burton is Associate Professor of Composition and Music Theory at Boston University, and her research concerns opera analysis, counterpoint, and the history of theory, emphasizing Italian sources. Her monograph, entitled Recondite Harmony: Essays on Puccini’s Operas, was published by Pendragon Press in 2012. She has published articles in Theoria, Studi Musicali, Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana, Opera Quarterly, Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale, and other journals. Professor Burton was President of the New England Conference for Music Theory from 2006–2008.

"Puccini's last and in many ways most venturesome opera,Turandot, was left unfinished upon the composer's death in 1924. ‘Unfinished’ works from great composers have a way of getting finished eventually, particularly if they include what may now be, in the middle of the 21st century, Puccini's most-beloved aria, ‘Nessun Dorma.’ In this brilliant new study, Deborah Burton takes us from Puccini's decision to set a 12th century story (one that had already been turned into a play by Friedrich Schiller about 600 years later) through his final days. After that, things get complicated: the opera had its premiere at La Scala in 1926 in a completed form by the Italian composer Franco Alfano. It was in fact Alfano's second completion but the first had been torn apart by such powerful forces as Arturo Toscanini and G. Ricordi, Puccini's publisher. For the rest, you'll have to read the book, which also includes characters as diverse as Luciano Berio, Pietro Mascagni and Benito Mussolini. And if you think the music world is difficult now, you don't know the half of it."Tim Page, Professor Emeritus of Musicology, University of Southern California, Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, 1997“What I found most exciting about this book, beyond its musicological and compositional achievements, is the baseline information it provides about the world in which and for which Puccini and all who worked on Turandot were functioning: all the previous creators (from the Greeks to Schiller and Busoni) to contemporary “influencers” (Mussolini, Toscanini, et al.) to our times (Ai Weiwei, David Henry Hwang and others). It places Puccini’s work in a framework of literary, political, and even intellectual currents that is too often absent in considerations of his exceedingly popular art and establishes how music is never just discrete mathematical system of dots on the page. This book goes beyond suggesting solutions to the problem of the unfinished masterpiece in question, and gives the context to create the informed, rather than the merely didactic or sentimental, discussion of Puccini’s work that it deserves.”William Berger, commentator for the Metropolitan Opera, librettist and author of Puccini without Excuses, Wagner without Fear, Verdi with a Vengeance and other books“Puccini’s genius is such that his final work Turandot, though left unfinished, is still one of the world's greatest operas. With insight, careful scholarship, and – yes – love for her subject, Deborah Burton gives us a clear way to examine the endings others have composed for Turandot. And, with utter commitment, she gives us an intriguing ending of her own.”Debra Lew Harder, M.D., D.M.A., Radio Host/Announcer The Metropolitan Opera

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