“Turandot” by Giacomo Puccini libretto (English)

Contents: Roles; Act One; Act Two; Act Three

ACT THREE

Scene One

The garden of the Palace
(At right a pavilion which is reached by five steps,
beyond which are richly embroidered hangings. The
pavilion is the entrance to one of the wings of the
Palace, which contains the rooms of Turandot. It is
night. From the remote distance come the voices of
Heralds, who are going around the immense city,
proclaiming the royal command. Resting on the steps
is the Prince. In the great silence of the night, he
listens to the cries, as if no longer in the real world.)

HERALDS
Turandot commands thus:
“Tonight no one must sleep
in Peking!”

DISTANT VOICES
No one must sleep!
No one must sleep!

HERALDS
“Under the pain of death, the name
of the Stranger must be revealed
before morning!”

DISTANT VOICES
Under pain of death!

HERALDS
“Tonight no one must sleep
in Peking!”

DISTANT VOICES
No one must sleep!
No one must sleep!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
No one must sleep!
No one must sleep...
You, too, o Princess,
in your cold room
look at the stars, that tremble
with love and with hope!
But my mystery is shut within me;
no one will know my name!

No, I will say it on your mouth
when the daylight shines!
And my kiss will break the silence
that makes you mine!

WOMEN’S VOICES
No one will know his name...
And, alas, we must die!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Vanish, o night!
Set, you stars!
At dawn I will win!
I will win! I will win!
(Slipping through the shrubbery come the three
Ministers, leading a small crowd that, gradually,
becomes more numerous.)

PING
You who look at the stars,
lower your eyes.

PONG
Our life is in your power!

PANG
Our life!

PING
Did you hear the proclamation?
In the streets of Peking, at every door
Death knocks and cries:
his name!

THE MINISTERS
His name, or your blood!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
What do you want of me?

PING, PANG and PONG
You say what you want!
Is it love you seek?
Well: take it!
(He thrusts forward, at the Prince’s feet, a group of
girls, lovely and half-naked.)
Look, they are beautiful
in their shimmering veils!

PONG and PANG
Their lithe bodies...

PING
All ecstasy and promises
of stupendous passions!

WOMEN
Ah, ah!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
No! No!

PONG and PANG
What do you want? Wealth?
all these treasures are for you!
(At a sign, porters bring in baskets, coffers, sacks filled
with gold and jewels.)

PING
They shatter the dark night...

PONG
Blue fires!

PING
...these gleaming gems!

PANG
Green splendours!

PONG
Pale hyacinths!

PANG
The red flames of the rubies!

PING
They are tear-drops of the stars!

PONG and PANG
Blue fires!
Red flames!

PING
Take them! They’re all yours!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
No! No riches! No!

THE MINISTERS
Do you seek glory?
We will have you flee...

PONG and PANG
...and you’ll follow the stars afar
towards fabulous empires!

ALL
Flee! Flee!
Go, go far away!
And we will all be saved!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Come, dawn!
Dissolve this nightmare!

PING
Stranger, you don’t know
what the Cruel One is capable of:
you don’t know!

THE MINISTERS
You don’t know the horrible tortures
China will invent
if you stay and do not reveal
you name!

ALL
The Sleepless One does not forgive!
We are lost!
It will be a horrible torture!
The sharp irons!
The spiky wheels!
The hot grip of the pincers!
Death, little by little!
Don’t make us die! etc.

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Your prayers are in vain!
Your threats are in vain!
If the world should collapse,
I want Turandot!

THE CROWD
You won’t have her. No!
You will die before we do!
A curse on you!
Speak! The name! The name!
(A group of guards bring in old Timur and Liù, tattered,
bruised, broken, and bleeding.)

GUARDS
Here’s the name!
It’s here! It’s here!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
They don’t know it!
They don’t know my name!...

PING
It’s the old man and the girl
who were talking to you last night!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Let them go!

PING
They know the secret!
Where did you catch them?

GUARDS
As they were wandering about there,
near the walls!

MINISTERS and CROWD
Princess! Princess!
(Turandot appears at the edge of the pavilion. All
prostrate themselves on the ground, except Ping, who
comes forward with extreme humility and speaks.)

PING
Divine Princess!
The stranger’s name is closed
within these silent mouths.
But we have instruments
to wrench out those teeth.
and we have pincers
to drag out that name!

TURANDOT
You are pale, stranger!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Your fear
sees the pallor of dawn
on my face!
They don’t know me!

TURANDOT
We shall see!
Come, speak, old man!
I want him to speak!
The name!

LIÙ
The name you seek –
only I know.

THE CROWD
Our lives are saved;
the nightmare has vanished!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
You know nothing, slave!

LIÙ
I know his name...
My supreme pleasure
is to keep it secret and to have it
for myself alone!

THE CROWD
Have her bound and tortured!
Until she speaks! Until she dies!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
(sets himself in front of Liù to protect her)
You will pay for her tears!
You will pay for her torments!

TURANDOT
Seize him!

LIÙ
Lord, I won’t speak!
(The Prince is seized by the soldiers and shackled, Liù
seized by her torturers, has fallen on her knees to the
ground.)

PING
His name!

LIÙ
No!

PING
His name!

LIÙ
Your servant asks your pardon,
but she cannot obey!
(A soldier twists her wrists.)
Ah!

TIMUR
Why are you crying?

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Let her go!

LIÙ
No...no...I’m not crying now!
They aren’t hurting me!
No, nobody’s touching me.
(to the guards)
Harder...
but shut my mouth
so he can’t hear me!
I can’t stand it any longer!

THE CROWD
Speak! His name!

TURANDOT
Let her go!
Speak!
(Liù is freed.)

LIÙ
I’d rather die!

TURANDOT
Who gave your heart
such strength?

LIÙ
Love, Princess!

TURANDOT
Love?

LIÙ
Such love, secret and unconfessed,
so great that these torments
are sweet for me,
because I make a gift of them
for my lord...
because, keeping silent, I give him
your love...
I give you him, Princess,
and I lose everything!
Even my impossible hope!...
Bind me! Torture me!
Give me torments and pain!
Ah! the supreme gift
of my love!

TURANDOT
Wrest the secret from her!

PING
Call Pu-Tin-Pao!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
No, curse you! Curse you!

THE CROWD
The executioner!

PING
Put her to the torture!

THE CROWD
Torture! Yes, the executioner! Make her speak!

LIÙ
I can bear it no longer!
I’m afraid of myself!
Let me by!

THE CROWD
Speak, speak!

LIÙ
Yes, Princess, listen to me!
You, who are enclosed in ice,
conquered by such flame,
you will love him, too!
Before the dawn,
I will wearily close my eyes,
so he can win again...
And I’ll never see him more!

(Suddenly she seizes a dagger from a soldier and stabs
herself to death. She casts her dazed eyes around,
looks at the Prince, who is still held by the Guards. She
stumbles over to him and falls headlong at his feet,
dead.)

THE CROWD
Ah, speak! Speak!
His name! His name!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Ah! You are dead,
O my poor little Liù...
(A great silence falls, filled with terror. Turandot stares
at Liù, lying on the ground; then with an enraged
gesture she seizes a lash from one of the executioner’s
men beside her and whips the face of the soldier who
allowed Liù to seize his dagger. The Prince is freed.
Then old Timur, as if out of his mind, rises. He goes over
to the little dead body, kneels down and speaks.)

TIMUR
Liù...Liù...get up!
It’s the bright hour
for all awakening!
It’s the dawn, my Liù..
Open your eyes, my dove!
(Everyone feels pity and remorse. An expression of
torment passes over Turandot’s face. Ping notices it,
and goes roughly towards the old man to drive him
away. But as he nears Timur, his natural cruelty is
overcome, and the usual hardness of his voice is
softened.)

PING
Get up, old man! She’s dead!

TIMUR
Ah! horrible crime!
We will all pay for it!
The offended spirit will take revenge!
(Then a superstitious terror seizes the crowd: the fear
that the dead girl will become an evil spirit, because
she was the victim of injustice, and that she will
change, as the popular belief has it, into a vampire. As
two handmaidens cover Turandot’s face with a white
veil embroidered in silver, the crowd supplicates.)

THE CROWD
Grieving shade, don’t harm us!
Scornful shade, forgive us!
(With religious pity, the little body is raised up amidst
the profound respect of the crowd. The old man comes
over, tenderly takes the dead girl’s hand and walks
along beside her.)

TIMUR
Liù...goodness!
Liù...sweetness!
Ah! we are walking together again,
This, your hand in mine!
I know well where you’re going.
And I will follow you
to rest near you
in the night that has no morning.

PING
Ah! for the first time
I don’t snicker at seeing Death!

PONG
That old machine
my heart, has wakened inside me
and is tormenting me!

PANG
That dead child weighs
on my heart like a stone!
(As the cortège goes off, the crowd speaks.)

THE CROWD
Liù...goodness...forgive!
Liù...Sweetness, sleep!
Forget! Liù...Poetic spirit!
(All have left. Only the Prince and Turandot remain.)

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Princess of death!
Princess of ice!
Come down to earth
from your tragic heaven!
Ah! Raise that veil...
Look...look, cruel one,
at that purest blood
that was shed for you!
(He rushes to her and tears away her veil.)

TURANDOT
How do you dare, stranger!
I am not human...

I am the daughter of heaven...
free and pure.
You clasp my cold veil,
but my spirit is there, aloft!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Your spirit is on high!
But your body is near.
With burning hands I’ll clasp
the gold border of your starry cloak...
My trembling mouth
will be pressed on yours...

TURANDOT
Do not profane me!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Ah! To feel you alive!

TURANDOT
Stand back!
Do not profane me!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Your iciness is a lie!

TURANDOT
No, no one will ever possess me!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
I want you to be mine!

TURANDOT
My ancestress’s torment
will not be repeated! Ah, no!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
I want you to be mine!

TURANDOT
Touch me not,
it is a sacrilege!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
No, your kiss gives me eternity!

TURANDOT
Sacrilege!
(And as he speaks, the Unknown Prince, filled with the
sense of his right and with his passion, seizes Turandot
in his arms and kisses her in a frenzy. Carried away,
Turandot has no more resistance, no more strength, no
more will power. This unbelievable contact has
transfigured her. In a pleading, almost childish voice,
she now murmurs:)
What has become of me?
I’m lost!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
My flower!
Oh, my morning flower!
My flower, I breathe you in!
Your lily breasts,
ah! they tremble against my chest!
Already I feel you faint with sweetness,
all white in your silver cloak!

VOICES WITHIN
Ah! Ah!

TURANDOT
How did you win?

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
You weep?

TURANDOT
It’s the dawn! Dawn!
Turandot’s sun has set!

VOICES WITHIN
Dawn! Light and Life!
Princess, all is pure!
All is holy!
What sweetness in your weeping!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
It’s dawn! The dawn!
And Love is born with the sun!

TURANDOT
No one must see me...
My glory is ended!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
No! It has begun!

TURANDOT
I am ashamed!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
Miracle!
Your glory is radiant
in the magic of a first kiss,
of your first tears.

TURANDOT
My first tears...ah!
My first tears, yes,
stranger, when you arrived,
with anguish I felt
the fatal shudder of this great illness.
How many I’ve seen die for me!
And I scorned them;
but you, I feared!
In your eyes there was
the light of heroes!
In your eyes there was
haughty certainty...
And for that I hated you...
And I loved you for that,
tormented and torn
between two equal fears:
to defeat you or be defeated...
And I am defeated... Ah!
Defeated, not so much by the trial
as by his fever
that comes to me from you!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
You’re mine! Mine!

TURANDOT
This, this is what you sought.
Now you know.
Don’t seek a greater victory...
go, stranger...
with your mystery!

THE UNKNOWN PRINCE
My mystery?
I no longer have one!
You are mine!
You who tremble if I touch you!
You who pale when I kiss you,
can destroy me if you will.
My name and my life
I give you together.
I am Calaf, son of Timur!

TURANDOT
I know your name!

CALAF
My glory is your embrace!

TURANDOT
Listen! The trumpets blare!

CALAF
My life is your kiss!

TURANDOT
Lo, the hour has come!
It’s the hour of the trial!

CALAF
I do not fear it!

TURANDOT
Ah, Calaf! come with me before the people!

CALAF
You have won!

Scene Two

Outside the Imperial Palace
(It is all white, of carved marble, over which the rosy
reflections of dawn play like blooming flowers. At the
top of a high stairway, in the centre of the scene, the
Emperor is surrounded by his court, dignitaries, sages,
and soldiers. At either side of the square, in a vast
semi-circle, is the enormous, acclaiming crowd.)

THE CROWD
Ten thousand years to our Emperor!
(The three Ministers spread a golden mantle on the
ground as Turandot goes up the stairs. Suddenly there is silence.)

TURANDOT
August father...I know the name
of the stranger!
His name is...Love!
(Calaf rushes up the steps. The two lovers are locked in
an embrace.)

THE CROWD
Love!
O Sun! Life! Eternity!
Love is the light of the world!
Our infinite happiness
laughs and sings in the Sun!
Glory to you! Glory to you!

END

libretto by William Weaver

Contents: Roles; Act One; Act Two; Act Three