TURANDOT
The story is about a foreign prince loves the princess of China, Turandot, he goes to the palace and asks for the marriage. However, before he can marry Turandot, he must answers three question from Turandot. He answered the first two questions easily, and, with a bit of hesitate, but finally, he answered the third question correctly. However, the princess is scared, she doesn't want to marry him, and asks the King for help. The princess loves her so much, he doesn't want to force her to marry with him, so he says,
"I'll give you but one question, for return. If you know the answer, I will die".
His question is, "Who am I?"
Turandot must answers the question before the sunrise. Everyone in the Beijing City shall not sleep, because they need to find the foreigner's name.
Finally, they found a yound girl and an old man who was with the foreigner at the night before, they should know his name. The servants bring them to Turandot, and the princess asks them what the foreigner's name is. The two people do not answered. Then the servants suggest to force them to answer by beating them. The young girl, Liu, who was with the foreigner, says,
"I am the only one person who know his name, but I won't tell you."
Then the servants catch her and twist her arm, she screams. Turandot tell them to stop, and askes her again what the foreigner's name is, and says, if she doesn't answer, she will be beheaded. However, Liu says,
"Because I love him so much, what I can only give him is your love. I won't tell you his name, and I will close my eyes forever..."
After Liu said that, she goes towards Turandot, and pulls out the princess' hairpin to kill herself...
Everyone is so sad, but Turandot hasn't changed her mind. The prince talks with her, and tries to change her mind. And, he kisses her. However, because the princess is too scared of him, the foreign prince is totally disappointed. At last, he tells her who he is,
"My name is Calaf, the son of King Timur. Now my life is yours, you can kill me now."
Calaf doesn't know that Turandot's heart was melted since that moment. Turandot starts to love him!
The sun rises. Calaf and Turandot go to the front of the King of China. Turandot says.
"I know who he is now, his name is LOVE!"
What a wonderful time!!! Calaf and Turandot finally go together...
Because that's an Italian opera, and I just read through the english words on the screen, some sentence might not the exact meaning of the original opera.
[oh, please forgive me for another thing, because my memory is not good enough, the content of the story might a bit differ from the original one...]