Nessun Dorma

"Nessun Dorma" is an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot. It is one of the best-known tenor arias in the world. It is sung by Calaf, il principe ignoto, who falls in love at first sight with the beautiful but distant Princess Turandot. "Nessun Dorma" is sung in the empty palace garden as the city erupts into chaos in the distance. Translated as "None shall sleep," the song conveys the prince's conviction that Turandot will fail. He will tell her his name when morning comes, before their first kiss.

I think every composer comes across that one piece of music that they unconditionally love forever, that end all be all, that which is beyond reproach. This aria is one of those for me. I knew there were 3 huge obstacles I would be faced with: I had to change the key, yikes, and I had to face those two chord inversions with Puccini’s specific voicings/spellings; a trademark of this aria which also happens to be two of the worst possible voicings for wind bands.

On the first pass, I scored as closely as I could to Puccini's, using every trick in my book to make it work. It felt like trying to hide a grand piano behind a lizard. The second time, I thought, nobody will notice this change and shifted the voicing ever so slightly which I immediately noticed. The third time, “let me cheat and voice it for winds, I mean, who is going to notice that? (I noticed immediately) The fourth time was full blown desecration. "Mi scusi Puccini. Non sono che un
contadino!" (Please excuse me Puccini. I am but a peasant!")
"Nessun Dorma" translates in the aria as "None shall sleep" and trust me, I didn’t. Those chord spellings will haunt me to the end of my days. It became my white whale. The beauty and perfection of Puccini’s aria still shines through despite the fumbling of this humbled orchestrator.

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