Bruce Alan Wilson wrote:

>Turandot is incapable of loving anybody--including and especially herself--
>or of allowing anybody to love her.  It is only the self-sacrificing love
>of Liu, giving of itself without asking or expecting any return, that is
>able to break down the wall of ice that Turandot has erected around
>herself. Only then is she able to accept Calaf's love--and return it.

So much for the lesson of Abraham's rejected sacrifice of Isaac!

Lacking your sensitivity, I thought it was Calaf's subduing Turandot w/ his
kiss that broke down that wall.  Of course, coming as it does immediately
after the suicide of Liu, the one character in the opera capable and worthy
of love, with her body still warm, Calaf's continued attraction for
Turandot seems to me particularly distateful!

Walter Meyer