Society lives in terror of Princess Turandot. Matrimony alone seems likely to end the violence, yet no suitor has managed to solve her riddles and win her hand. Time and again the same scene is played out, ending in yet another execution. Against all expectations, Calaf, son of an exiled potentate from a far-off country, breaks the chain of brutality. Puccini spent the last four years of his life working on TURANDOT, basing his opera on Carlo Gozzi's fairytale play of 1762. Far from conjuring up an endearing, doll-like China, the exotic tones of his richest and most dissonant score present us with a world steeped in an atmosphere of inconceivable cruelty.