London Royal Opera House 14 July 2017
Princess Turandot Lise Lindstrom
Calaf Roberto Alagna
Liù Aleksandra Kurzak
Timur Brindley Sherratt

Turandot is a Persian word and name that means "daughter of Turan", Turan being a region of Central Asia, formerly part of the Persian Empire. The name of the opera is taken from Persian Turandokht (توراندخت‎), with dokht being a contraction of dokhtar (daughter); the kh and t are both pronounced. However, the original protagonist in Nizami's story is identified in the first line of the Persian poem as being from Russia. The story is known as the story of the Red Dome among the Seven Domes (Haft Ghonbad) stories in Nizami's Haft Peykar (i.e., the seven figures or beauties).

The story of Turandot was taken from a Persian collection of stories called The Book of One Thousand and One Days (1722 French translation Les Mille et un jours by François Pétis de la Croix – not to be confused with its sister work The Book of One Thousand and One Nights) – in which the character of "Turandokht" as a cold princess is found. The story of Turandokht is one of the best-known tales from de la Croix's translation. The plot respects the classical unities of time, space, and action. "In questa reggia" – quotation from the reduced score Puccini began working on Turandot in March 1920 >>>