"Tu che di gel sei cinta" ("You who are girdled with ice") is a soprano aria from act 3, scene 1, of Puccini's 1926 opera Turandot. It is sung by Liù under torture, prior to her suicide.

The words were written by Puccini himself while waiting for librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni to deliver the next part of the libretto. When the librettists read them, they decided that they could not do better than that.^[1] In their work on Turandot, Ashbrook and Powers suggest that Puccini's failure to complete the opera much beyond this point resulted mainly from inadequate dramatic build-up for Turandot's last-minute change of heart combined with an overly successful treatment of the secondary character (i.e. Liù).

Background

Princess Turandot is taken aback by Liù's strong resolve by not revealing the name of the Prince, and asked her:

Turandot was furious with the answer, and ordered Ping to continue torturing Liù. Liù counters Turandot with this aria, and later seized a dagger from a soldier's belt and stabs herself. In the following moments, the blind Timur tries to wake Liù, saying it is dawn ("Liù, Liù, sorgi, sorgi"). When told she is dead, he cries out in anguish that her offended spirit will take revenge, and Liù's cortège moves off, with Timur vowing to accompany her into "the night which knows no dawn".

Libretto

References

• William Ashbrook and Harold Powers (1991) Puccini's Turandot. The End of the Great Tradition. Princeton University Press

External links

• "Tu che di gel sei cinta". Aria database site. Retrieved 25 July 2018
• "Tu che di gel sei cinta" on YouTube, by Renata Tebaldi in a studio recording with Mario del Monaco and Alberto Erede conducting, 1955
• "Tu che di gel sei cinta" on YouTube, Leona Mitchell, live performance at The met in 1988.
• "Tu che di gel sei cinta" on YouTube, Maria Callas