Time as an Action Generating Factor in Giacomo Puccini’s Opera “Turandot”
Time as an Action Generating Factor in Giacomo Puccini’s Opera “Turandot”

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the time coordinate as a tension/relaxation generator in Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot. The work is replete with temporal suggestions, which are either inserted directly in the libretto, by linking the moments of the action to certain times of the day (the appearance of the Moon or the rise of the Sun), or used as structural devices in the score, whereby the perception of time’s passage is accelerated or delayed through the use of traditional musical devices such as: the alternation of equal or dotted rhythmic values, melodic lines moving stepwise or in leaps, the alternation of Western tonality and pentatonic systems, of binary and ternary meter, of consonance and dissonance, or of homophony and polyphony. At the same time, the construction of the tensional moments takes into account the characters’ psychology, so that the objective progression of time is altered by their inner states. The subjective perception of time occurs not only in terms of the relationship between the audience and the stage, but also in the expansion and contraction of time as perceived by the characters themselves.

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