Turandot To obtain permission to marry her, a suitor has to solve three riddles; any wrong answer results in death. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot still refuses to marry him. He offers her a way out: if she is able to learn his name before dawn the next day, then at daybreak he will die. In the original story by Nizami, the princess sets four conditions. The first is "a good name and good deeds", and then the three challenges. The opera was unfinished at the time of Puccini's death in 1924, and was completed by Franco Alfano in 1926.
Manon Lescaut (Puccini) compositions for strings: the quartet "Crisantemi" (January 1890), three "Menuets" (probably 1884) and a "Scherzo" (1883?). The love theme comes from the aria "Mentia l'avviso" (1883). Puccini's publisher, Ricordi, had been against any project based on Prévost's story because Jules Massenet had already made it into a successful opera, "Manon", in 1884. While Puccini and Ricordi may not have known it, the French composer Daniel Auber had also already written an opera on the same subject with the title "Manon Lescaut", in 1856. Despite all the warnings, Puccini proceeded. "Manon is a heroine I believe in and therefore she cannot