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ACT I
No man may touch Princess Turandot. She has told King Altoum, her father, only to marry the suitor who can answer three riddles. All other candidates will be executed. The Prince of Persia has just failed the quest. The crowds are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the executioner and the subsequent spectacle. Present is also the aged King Timur, who is living in exile together with his trusted slave girl Liù. When Timur falls to the ground a stranger comes to his aid. It is his son, Calaf, also exiled and believed to be dead. As the Prince of Persia is about to be beheaded, the bloodthirsty crowd is moved to compassion, and they ask Turandot to spare his life, but she refuses. Calaf has fallen in love with Turandot, but Timur and Liù try to prevent him from
coming forward as a suitor. Turandot’s ministers, Ping, Pang and Pong, and the voices of the dead suitors describe the terrible consequences of his infatuation, but Calaf is deaf to their pleas. He strikes the gong to announce his desire to hear the riddles.
ACT II
Ping, Pang and Pong are exhausted by the executions; they dream of a better China where there is only one ruler and no more cruelty. The country will not be at peace until Turandot is married. The next round of riddles is prepared. The crowds hail the aging emperor and try to warn the stranger, but Calaf has made up his mind. Turandot reveals her reasons for refusing to be owned by any man and tells the story of her ancestor Lo-u Ling. The princess had lived happily until she was raped and killed by a foreign prince. Calaf answers all three riddles correctly, and the crowds cheer. Turandot refuses to keep her promise and begs her father not to make her the stranger’s slave. In return, Calaf demands that Turandot must not be forced into this union, but that she must marry him out of love. Now he presents her with a riddle: if she can guess his name before dawn, he will forfeit his life.
ACT III
Turandot pledges to kill anyone who sleeps before the name of the stranger is revealed. Terror reigns and Calaf dreams of sharing his life with Turandot.
Ping, Pang and Pong shake him out of his reveries and try to bribe him to reveal his name and then escape. The crowd too urges him to tell them his name or they will kill him. They then try to force Timur and Liù to reveal it. Turandot orders Timur to be tortured. Liù insists that only she knows the stranger’s name, but she refuses to reveal it. Turandot asks Liù how she can stand the torture. “Love” is her answer; then she proceeds to take her own life – “You, girded in ice and conquered by such flame, will love him, too!”
Timur calls for her death to be avenged. The crowd now turns to the princess and the unknown prince. Turandot and Calaf are seen together, bathed in the light of the rising sun.
