Walter Meyer responds to me:

>>It is also interesting that it, in many ways, in form it harkens back to
>>the masque or mystery play.
>
>There you have me.  Could you tell more? I always thought the medieval
>mystery plays were religious.

Of course.  What can be more religious than love overcoming death? That is
the central Christian Mystery after all.

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.

The references to the Mystery Plays and the Masques relates to the
structure of the opera--a series of ceremonial and symbolic acts.  It
doesn't have the 'slice of life' quality that (say) TOSCA or CAV/PAG
or even FIGARO or COSI do.  Turandot, Calaf, etc.  are more symbolic
figures--almost Jungian archetypes--than they are three-dimensional,
fully-realized characters.  MAGIC FLUTE has that quality also--and it
is interesting that we see these features, as it were, at the beginning
(Mozart) and the end (Puccini) of the standard operatic repertoire.

"Bruce Alan Wilson" <[log in to unmask]>