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.
Giacomo Puccini selective, and at times indecisive, in his choice of subject matter for new works. Puccini was deeply involved in the process of writing the libretto itself, requiring many iterative revisions of his libretti in terms of both structure and text. Puccini's relationships with his librettists were at times very difficult. His publisher, Casa Ricordi, was frequently required to mediate disputes and impasses between them. Puccini explored many possible subjects that he ultimately rejected only after a significant amount of effort—such as the creation of a libretto—had been put into them. Among the subjects that Puccini seriously considered, but abandoned, were: