operatic life isn’t easy (apparently)

On Sunday afternoon, I picked up Puccini’s Turandot from the iTunes music store. I enjoyed several pieces from that composition and I figured I might as well listen to the whole thing to try to understand the storyline and also to see what all the hoopla was all about. 20 seconds in to the first song and I came to the realization that trying to understand the storyline from the track was futile – it is, of course, entirely in Italian (whups). So I hopped on Wikipedia to find a synopsis and try to follow along with the mp3s.

OH MY GOODNESS…

Apparently opera storylines are ridiculous! The drama in these things make our TV soaps look pedestrian. For example, the storyline of Turandot is as follows:

There’s a hot princess (Turandot) in China who makes all potential suitors answer three riddles. If you get them right, you get to marry the princess. Otherwise, you get beheaded. Then there’s a prince (unnamed) from some far-away land who is in the crowd as a failed prince of persia is getting beheaded. He bumps into a blind man as he is in the crowd, who he recognizes as his long lost father/King (also in the crowd along with his maid). Our prince says hi to his dad, looks up and sees the princess, and immediately falls madly in love. In his love, he runs up and takes up the challenge. He answers riddles correctly, but hot princess is repulsed by this prince (apparently our guy isn’t good-looking). Our prince (still madly in love) presents her a challenge: Since nobody knows his name, figure out his name by morning and he gets beheaded; otherwise, she must marry him. Clearly repulsed, she decrees that nobody shall sleep until she figures out his name (background to Nessun Dorma). If she can’t , all of her ppl will be beheaded. Then she finds our prince’s father and maid, tortures the maid in front of prince; maid reveals she’s secretly in love with prince, and kills self. Prince gets mad, reveals his name, but apparently still wants to marry her (again…madly in love). This time, he says…she can still behead him if she wants. She recognizes this as love, and agrees to marry him. The End.

Confusing right?! And I thought American soaps and chick-flicks had crazy drama…this thing has way more twists and turns! Geez I can’t imagine life having this much craziness! Zoinks…asking a girl out makes me nervous enough as it is...can you imagine throwing in riddles and the underlying threat of beheading too?? And she rejected him!! *sigh* we guys have it tough.