Franco Alfano nine months on the following concluding duet and at his death had left behind a whole ream of sketches... Alfano had to reconstruct...according to his best assessment...and with his imagination and magnifying glass" since Puccini's material "had not really been legible." "Alfano's reputation has also suffered [IC:along with Mascagni], understandably, because of his willingness to associate himself closely with Mussolini's Fascist government." Alex Ross, in "The New Yorker", notes that a new ending of "Turandot" composed by Luciano Berio premiered in 2002 is preferred by some critics for making a more satisfactory resolution of Turandot's change of heart, and of
Festival Puccini Festival Puccini The Festival Puccini (Puccini Festival) is an annual summer opera festival held in July and August to present the operas of the famous Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. The Festival is located in Torre del Lago, Italy, a town located between Lago di Massaciuccoli and the Tyrrhenian Sea, from the beaches of Viareggio on the Tuscan Riviera and from Pisa and Lucca, Puccini's birthplace. In presenting four or five performances of up to four operatic productions each season, the Festival attracts about forty thousand spectators to its open-air theatre, the "Teatro dei Quattromila" (so named for its seating capacity,