The Met: Live in HD presents Puccini’s ‘Turnadot’

Above: The Met: Live in HD production of the opera "Turnadot" will screen at select theaters on Saturday and Wednesday. (Photo/Fathom Events)

Italian composer Giacomo Puccini never got to see a production of his opera “Turnadot.” He never even lived to finish it.

The work did get finished (by Franco Alfano two years after Puccini’s death in 1924). Yet at its first performance, conducted on April 25, 1926, by the great Arturo Toscanini, the production ended in a way totally appropriate to the art form itself.

According to Wikepedia, right in the middle of the third act, “two measures after the words ‘Liù, poesia,’ ” the music stopped. Toscanini lowered his baton, turned to the audience and declared, “Qui finisce l'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto.”

Translation: “Here the opera ends because at this point the maestro died.”

That’s according to one report. Others in attendance worded Tascanini’s pronouncement a bit differently. But the result was the same: The show was over that night.

Reports differ as to who conducted the next two performances. But it’s generally agreed that both included Alfano’s ending.

Local opera fans will get a chance to see “Turnadot,” presumably with Alfano’s ending, on Saturday and Wednesday when The Met: Live in HD production will screen at the Regal Cinemas theaters at Northtown Mall and Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium.

Saturday’s show will begin at 9:55 a.m. at both theaters, Wednesday’s at 1 and 6:30 p.m. only at Northtown.

Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska sings the title role, while tenor Yonghoon Lee plays the bold prince determined to win her love. Others in the cast include soprano Ermonela Jaho as the devoted servant Liù and bass Ferruccio Furlanetto as the blind king Timur.

Marco Armiliato will conduct, with the overall production designed by the late Franco Zeffirelli.

In a decidedly lukewarm review of The Met’s 2021 staging of “Turnadot,” New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini derided what was a revival of Zeffirelli’s “glittering, gaudy, opulent, tacky and overwhelmingly popular 1987 production.”

However, he lauded both the singing (though it was a different cast) and Armiliato’s conducting, which he said resulted in “a sure-paced and colorful performance.”

Now’s your chance to play critic. Twice, in fact.