Nessun dorma (Turandot)

Puccini began composing Turandot in January 1921, before the libretto was finished, working from Carlo Gozzi's play of 1762. He died on 29 November 1924 with the final duet unwritten, leaving thirty-six pages of sketches. Franco Alfano completed the score and Toscanini cut some three minutes of it. At the premiere at La Scala on 25 April 1926 Toscanini stopped the orchestra after Liù's death and told the audience that the opera ended there, because at that point the composer had died. The massed choruses and hard, bright orchestral colour stand at a distance from everything Puccini had written before.