| "Nessun dorma" at the RNC | |
| Last Edit: Alcindoro 01:41 am EDT 08/29/20 | |
| Posted by: Alcindoro 01:35 am EDT 08/29/20 | |
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| The aria "Nessun dorma" is from Giacomo Puccini's final opera TURANDOT, with a text by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, after a play by Carlo Gozzi. The opera takes place in the Chinese capital of Peking during mythical times. The beautiful young princess Turandot has declared that she will marry no man unless he can answer three riddles. All those who fail are executed. At the point in the opera when "Nessun dorma" is sung, the foreign prince Calaf, whose identity is a secret to all but a few, has answered the riddles correctly but has given the princess the chance to escape marriage and take his life by discovering his name before dawn. The Princess threatens torture and death to all unless the secret is revealed. The terrified people spend a sleepless night ("No one shall sleep...") trying to discover the name, but Prince Calaf says he will never tell her, and with the dawn he will win the Princess for his own ("Vincerò!" : I will win!). It has been my experience that the general public, if they even bother to listen to opera, rarely bother to find out what the usually foreign words of opera arias actually mean (and I say this as a lifelong opera lover who believes the words are just as important as the music) but are content to enjoy the dazzling "surface" effect of the music and the singer without bothering to understand the true meaning of the text and the context in which it is uttered. Although "Nessun dorma" has absolutely nothing to do with patriotism and the United States, it's rather ironic that it's about keeping secrets and withholding vital information from the public in order to win, and the threat of death for discovering the truth. |
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