awareness of this problem – an inadequate buildup for Turandot's change of heart, combined with an overly successful treatment of the secondary character (Liù) – which contributed to Puccini's inability to complete the opera. Another alternative ending, written by Chinese composer Hao Wei Ya, has Calaf pursue Turandot but kiss her tenderly, not forcefully; and the lines beginning "Del primo pianto" (Of the first tears) are expanded into an aria where Turandot tells Calaf more fully about her change of heart. Concerning the compelling believability of the self-sacrificial Liù character in contrast to the two mythic protagonists, biographers note echoes in Puccini's own life. He had had a servant named Doria, whom his wife accused of sexual relations with Puccini. The accusations escalated until Doria killed herself. In Turandot, Puccini lavished his attention on the familiar sufferings of Liù, as he had on his many previous suffering heroines. However, in the opinion of Father Owen Lee, Puccini was out of his element when it came to resolving the tale of his two allegorical protagonists. Finding himself completely outside his normal genre of verismo, he was incapable of completely grasping and resolving the necessary elements of the mythic, unable to "feel his way into the new, forbidding areas the myth opened up to him" – and thus unable to finish the opera in the two years before his unexpected death. Instrumentation Turandot is scored for three flutes (the third doubling piccolo); two oboes; one English horn; two clarinets in B-flat; one bass clarinet in B-flat, two bassoons; one contrabassoon; two onstage Alto saxophones in E-flat; four French horns in F; three trumpets in F; three tenor trombones; one contrabass trombone; six onstage trumpets in B-flat, three onstage trombones; and one onstage bass trombone; a percussion section with timpani, cymbals, gong, one triangle, one snare drum, one bass drum, one tam-tam, one glockenspiel, one xylophone, one bass xylophone, tubular bells, and tuned Chinese gongs; one onstage wood block; one onstage large gong; one celesta; one pipe organ; two harps; and strings. Recordings Notes References Citations Sources Further reading Lo, Kii-Ming, »Turandot« auf der Opernbühne, Frankfurt/Bern/New York (Peter Lang) 1996, . Maehder, Jürgen and Sylvano Bussotti, Turandot, Pisa: Giardini, 1983. Maehder, Jürgen, "Puccini's Turandot – A Fragment", in Nicholas John (ed.), Turandot, London: John Calder / New York: Riverrun, 1984, pp. 35–53. Maehder, Jürgen, "La trasformazione interrotta della principessa. Studi sul contributo di