An opera fairy tale for young and old about a flesh-and-blood fairy princess with excerpts from Carmen, The magic flute and other well-known operas.
Price: €16 euros.
Ordering can be done via info@walpurgis.be
O thou Turandot! Thou, ice princess!
With your stone-cold heart and your frozen smile.
Ye too shall melt one day!
'It will hurt when your blood starts flowing again.
'It will sting like a centipede sting.
And thou shalt weep, human tears,
ordinary human tears,
and like to see, just like me!
The beautiful princess Turandot has many suitors but does not want to marry. So she devises a ruse. Any prince who wants to marry her must first solve three riddles. If he answers correctly, he is lucky and becomes her husband. But if he doesn't guess it, she chops off his head as punishment, and without pardon. Fed up with this creepy game, the people beg the princess to choose and marry a sweet prince. But Turandot sticks to her decision and turns more and more into an ice princess.
Press and public reaction
“With a limited number of characters, a pared-down fairy tale story and clever illustrations, the audiobook tries to get young readers and listeners excited about opera. Not obvious, but with this book, Vindevogel certainly has a chance to win some souls.”
Vanessa Dockx, The Reading Welp, September 2013
There's no getting around it, this is a musical fairy tale to listen and watch for hours. A layered narrative with plenty of music to discover bit by bit.
Eric Vanthillo, Pluizuit, March 2013
“It is the intoxicating atmosphere of text and illustrations that does it. And the music, of course. Wonderful fragments by Brahms, Schubert, Villa-Lobos, Mozart, Puccini....
An audiobook to cherish.”
Thingseekers.co.uk, February 2013
“Instead of the stage scene, you now get prints by Ingrid Godon. And she is in good form, it has to be said. Judith Vindevogel's text is nicely rhythmic, even if you don't have a CD player nearby. The book also works as a game because you can try to solve the riddles in all safety, without fearing for your head.”
Barbara Rottiers, Cobra.be, 21 February 2013
***/* “The singers and musicians pull out a wide register and thus, besides surprising, manage to keep the tension curve nice and tight, and even more so, moving. This is what distinguishes this musically thorough piece of work from so many other listening CDs: the music itself often drives the action, creates atmosphere or interprets the complexity of inner and sometimes opposite feelings. And is thus much more than a mere brave illustration to a punishing narrative. (...) So, above all, turn up that volume on your CD player, cast an occasional steely glance at Godon's penetrating images and (re)discover, together with your offspring, the mesmerising power of song and music.”
DMMagazine, 6 February 2013
**** “Princess Turandot forms the perfect symbiosis between text, image and music - where each part is indispensable to the whole.”
De Standaard, 18 January 2013
“Gift tip ! A book to prolong the fun and magic. As part of the show, Judith Vindevogel (text) and Ingrid Godon (illustrations) are publishing a book about this special princess. A listening fairytale for children that makes you shiver with pleasure (Lannoo).”
Mint newsletter, 21 January 2013
“Thanks in part to your wonderful CD, Hannah now knows Princess Turandot almost by heart. She plays it grey!”
Cathy Berckx, mail 14 February 2013
“I bought it for my grandchildren at the time. Very nice, beautifully illustrated. Bravo Judith!”
Luc Famaey, Facebook Princess Turandot 8 October 2013
