# Turandot??



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Okay, the long sought answer to the question: Is the last "T" pronounced or not?
Turandot or Turandoh?
Every time I saw this opera the cast always sounded the "T". 
I also believe that Corelli was a big believer in sounding the "T".
I think the dropped "T" is rarely heard these days.
Will we ever really know the truth?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

What reason would there be for dropping it? The name isn't French.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Wikipedia's definition does sound the T - /ˈtʊr.ən.dɑːt/

Puccini used a story by Carlo Gozzi who based his on a 12th century Persian poem about Turan-Dokht (daughter of Turan).


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Imm the version sung by Pavarotti he pronounces the t on the end


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

It is clearly Turan-dot. Turan-doh is only ever said by those who have never heard an opera in their lives and think Puccini is a kind of pasta!:lol:


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Silent T.

http://medicine-opera.com/2008/12/turandot-without-the-t/:



> Patrick Vincent Casali has written a long article (Opera Quarterly 13 (4): 77-91, 1997) detailing Puccini's intention that his opera be pronounced Turando[t]. Here's a 1962 interview with the Met's John Gutman and Rosa Raisa the first Turandot:
> 
> GUTMAN: In addition to being the very first Turandot, I know, Mme Raisa, that you appeared in other world premieres and several
> American premieres. Would you tell our audience, please, what some of those premieres were?
> ...


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Barbebleu said:


> It is clearly Turan-dot. Turan-doh is only ever said by those who have never heard an opera in their lives and think Puccini is a kind of pasta!:lol:


Actually, it really isn't quite that simple. This conundrum has been going on for years among two different camps.
In the Matz book "Puccini" he writes a letter to his publisher Ricordi and states, " No, no! Turandot no!" Some take this to be a rhyme with the silent "T".


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Does Calaf pronounce it either way depending on the recording?


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Turandot, Turandough, tomato, tomayto! Ah, the great mysteries of language. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Or would it?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Which reminds me of the girl auditioning for a broadway show and gets up on the stage with the director sitting in the audience.
She hands her music to the pianist and proceeds to sing:
"You say tomato and I say tomato, you say potato and I say potato..".
Just then the director interrupts her and shouts out, "that's you say tomato and I say tomahto, you say potato and I say potahto".
"Oops! I'm sorry" says the ingenue who clears her throat and begins again: "You say tomato and I say tomato, you say potato and I say potato...".
Annoyed the director interrupts and shouts, "Thank you, we'll call YOU, Miss Levine."
"LEVEEN" yells back the singer.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

We have an "artist", and I use the term loosely, in Scotland called Sydney Devine. Should I now refer to him as Deveen?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Do any singers actually pronounce the "t" after sustaining the "o", like when Calaf calls out to Turandot in Act 1? It just adds an ugly spit sound and this ain't German.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> Do any singers actually pronounce the "t" after sustaining the "o", like when Calaf calls out to Turandot in Act 1? It just adds an ugly spit sound and this ain't German.


Turandot ain't German, bit it ain't French either. It ain't Italian. It ain't Chinese. What is it? It's Persian:

'Turandot is a Persian word and name that means "the daughter of Turan", Turan being a region of Central Asia, formerly part of the Persian Empire. The name of the opera is taken from Persian Turandokht, with dokht being a contraction of dokhtar (daughter); the kh and t are both pronounced.' (Wikipedia)

Wiki goes on:

'According to Puccini scholar Patrick Vincent Casali, the final t is silent in the opera's and title character's name, making it sound [turanˈdo]. Soprano Rosa Raisa, who created the title role, says that Puccini never pronounced the final t. Eva Turner, a prominent Turandot, did not pronounce the final t, as television interviews with her attest. Casali also maintains that the musical setting of many of Calaf's utterances of the name makes sounding the final t all but impossible.[2] On the other hand, Simonetta Puccini, the composer's granddaughter and keeper of the Villa Puccini and Mausoleum, has said that the final t must be pronounced. Italo Marchini questioned her about this in 2002. Ms. Puccini said that in Italian the name would be Turandotta. In the Venetian dialect of Carlo Gozzi the final syllables are usually dropped and words end in a consonant, ergo Turandott, as the name has been made Venetian.'


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> Which reminds me of the girl auditioning for a broadway show and gets up on the stage with the director sitting in the audience.
> She hands her music to the pianist and proceeds to sing:
> "You say tomato and I say tomato, you say potato and I say potato..".
> Just then the director interrupts her and shouts out, "that's you say tomato and I say tomahto, you say potato and I say potahto".
> ...


This is similar to the story told by Ira Gershwin in his book about his lyrics. I.e. the ingenue is singing the words to their author.

Interesting thread.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Turandot ain't German, bit it ain't French either. It ain't Italian. It ain't Chinese. What is it? It's Persian:
> 
> 'Turandot is a Persian word and name that means "the daughter of Turan", Turan being a region of Central Asia, formerly part of the Persian Empire. The name of the opera is taken from Persian Turandokht, with dokht being a contraction of dokhtar (daughter); the kh and t are both pronounced.' (Wikipedia)
> 
> ...


So if Turandot is Venetian with the final 'T' pronounced, that would mean that the stress would fall on the final syllable (i.e. BeneTTON). Looking at the score where does the accent fall when the name is sung? Is it TUrandot or TuranDOT? Gozzi may have pronounced it the second way, but Puccini the first. Thus the name of the play may be pronounced differently from that of the opera.

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> So if Turandot is Venetian with the final 'T' pronounced, that would mean that the stress would fall on the final syllable (i.e. BeneTTON). Looking at the score where does the accent fall when the name is sung? Is it TUrandot or TuranDOT? Gozzi may have pronounced it the second way, but Puccini the first. Thus the name of the play may be pronounced differently from that of the opera.
> 
> N.


In the opera the accent falls on the last syllable: "dot" falls on the first beat of the measure, with "turan" on the anacrusis.


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## Macbeth (Sep 6, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Turandot ain't German, bit it ain't French either. It ain't Italian. It ain't Chinese. What is it? It's Persian:
> 
> 'Turandot is a Persian word and name that means "the daughter of Turan", Turan being a region of Central Asia, formerly part of the Persian Empire. The name of the opera is taken from Persian Turandokht, with dokht being a contraction of dokhtar (daughter); the kh and t are both pronounced.' (Wikipedia)


Finally I get to know why all names in this opera sound as chinese as if made up by Tolkien.

Maybe Puccini decided not to change the way it was written in the original story, despite being an adaptation, but if he intended the last T to be silent, he should have dropped it, because according to Italian pronouncing you ought to read it, I believe. Any Italians here to clarify?

Anyway this is an unexpectedly interesting detail to consider for performance and notice if singers pronounce it or not. Incidentally, I think a lot of Turandots sing their last line as "Il suo nome è aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh......" instead of "amor", again due to difficulty in inserting consonants in at that stentorian moment.

When I refer to this opera I'll keep calling it TurandoT, as I don't want people to think I'm some kind of pedantic jerk, which may be the reason why the most common pronunciation has prevaled over time...


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

On the same subject: I once asked a conductor I knew why everyone seems to call the opera by Janacek "'JEN-uh-fa" yet in the opera itself the characters refer to her as "Jeh-'NOO-fa" and he explained that poetically it is easier to sing that way.
Do you agree with his assessment?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> On the same subject: I once asked a conductor I knew why everyone seems to call the opera by Janacek "'JEN-uh-fa" yet in the opera itself the characters refer to her as "Jeh-'NOO-fa" and he explained that poetically it is easier to sing that way.
> Do you agree with his assessment?


No, everybody I know calls it Je-NOO-fa.

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte said:


> No, everybody I know calls it Je-NOO-fa.
> 
> N.


No kidding! Now that is interesting because someone just informed me that the proper pronunciation is deemed to be YEH-ne-fah. The "J" is silent. 
And now that I heard that, I DO recall the singers also not using the "J". They use the "Y" sound but accent the second syllable: Yeh-NOO-fah.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> No kidding! Now that is interesting because someone just informed me that the proper pronunciation is deemed to be YEH-ne-fah. The "J" is silent.
> And now that I heard that, I DO recall the singers also not using the "J". They use the "Y" sound but accent the second syllable: Yeh-NOO-fah.


Yes, of course the J is pronounced Y as in German. Is Jenufa a Cezch name?

I've just looked it up on Wikipedia and the sound file there has the pronunciation with the accent on the second syllable. It isn't a common name but anything I can find online has the same pronunciation that has been familiar to me all along.

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte said:


> Yes, of course the J is pronounced Y as in German. Is Jenufa a Cezch name?
> 
> I've just looked it up on Wikipedia and the sound file there has the pronunciation with the accent on the second syllable. It isn't a common name but anything I can find online has the same pronunciation that has been familiar to me all along.
> 
> N.


The Conte:
This has turned out to be a fascinating subject for me. I too went to Wikipedia and lo! I discovered a pronunciation that accented both the the first and second syllables and using the "Y" sound instead of the "J" sound. Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jenůfa.ogg 
Yet when I go to different websites that attempt to pronounce Jenufa, all kinds of different pronunciations come up.

(As the King in _The King & I_ said, "Is a puzzlement!")


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> The Conte:
> This has turned out to be a fascinating subject for me. I too went to Wikipedia and lo! I discovered a pronunciation that accented both the the first and second syllables and using the "Y" sound instead of the "J" sound. Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jenůfa.ogg
> Yet when I go to different websites that attempt to pronounce Jenufa, all kinds of different pronunciations come up.
> 
> (As the King in _The King & I_ said, "Is a puzzlement!")


You mean they say Jenufa instead of Tjenufa.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Sloe said:


> You mean they say Janufa instead of Tjanufa.


Something like that. Click it and tell me what you hear.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Something like that. Click it and tell me what you hear.


Jenofa is what I hear.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Sloe said:


> Jenofa is what I hear.


So you hear the "J" pronounced instead of the "Y".
Interesting.
I wonder what others hear.


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## Rossiniano (Jul 28, 2017)

I say that the more _*musical*_ version of Turandot rules where opera is concerned! Nowadays we are conditioned to hearing it pronounced as Turando*t* with not the only the final T sounded, but crossed as well!!! However, this has sounded overly explosive to my ears. I am not a native Italian, but I have heard the language spoken all of my life in both its Tuscan and dialect forms. Yes, it would probably be Turandotta in Italiano which would soften the explosive final T. However given the musical flow of what Puccini composed Turando (senza t) makes much more musical sence. The Turandotta would have too many syllables given the vocal lines composed by Puccini. Plus the three syllables of Turando(t) fit perfectly into all the references to three related to the libretto.

Remember that the Donizetti opera is entitled _Maria Stuarda_ not Maria Stuart or even Maria Stuarta with the D further softening the effect of the T. This sounds more musical to the Italian portion of my ears if not the English lanuauge side of my ears in my opinion.

Also temember that it is "Andiam Macbetto" not "Macbe*th*"!

So I'm saying that both Gaetano and Giuseppe would probably agree with Giacomo!

Still if Franco Corelli wants to sing it with the T I ain't gonna complain!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I always suspected that Puccini saying, "No, no, no, Turandot, no!" was actually pronouncing it without the final "T" to go with his rhyme. (but what do I know, anyway?)


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> I always suspected that Puccini saying, "No, no, no, Turandot, no!" was actually pronouncing it without the final "T" to go with his rhyme. (but what do I know, anyway?)


Who says that he meant that to rhyme?

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

No one but me "N". I stand alone.


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