The première of Turandot, at La Scala on 25 April 1926, was an event of great national significance. Puccini had died unexpectedly seventeen months earlier and the occasion was an opportunity not only to mourn him but to mark what many realised would be the end of an entire tradition. A younger composer, Franco Alfano, had used Puccini’s sketches to complete the final act, but the first-night audi...
The narrative around *Turandot*’s première and legacy invites deeper reflection on how art intersects with historical and cultural shifts. The opera’s reception—marked by both reverence for Puccini’s genius and discomfort with its modernist and authoritarian undertones—mirrors broader tensions in early 20th-century Europe. The critics’ expectation of a sentimental swansong reveals a cognitive bias: the assumption that an artist’s final work should conform to their established style, rather than ...