Live from the New York Met: Trumpandot - a lyric drama in three acts
Act 1.
Princess Trumpandot of China-land has sworn an oath that no man will possess her. However, she offers her suitors a chance: if one of them can answer correctly three riddles he can marry her. If not, he must die.
Prince Justin of Canada is captivated by the princess's beauty and small hands, and strikes the gong to signal his intention to woo Trumpandot.
Act 2.
Trumpandot arrives for the test of the riddles. She explains the reason for her cruelty. Years before her ancestress Princess E-Lon was humiliated and laughed at by woke foreigners. Trumpandot sees herself as the reincarnation of E-Lon and has vowed that no one will possess her. She reminds Prince Justin that the outcome has so far always been death. Justin insists on answering the riddles: (1) What is the ghost which all the world invokes and is constantly renewed? (2) What flickers like a flame when a man dreams of conquest? (3) What makes a king of the one it accepts as a slave?
Encouraged by the crowd, Justin correctly answers: Tariffs! X/Twitter! Trumpandot!
The princess is now his, but Justin does not wish her to give herself unwllingly and proposes another test: if she can discover his name during the night he is prepared to die at dawn. If not, he will possess her.
Act 3.
Justin awaits dawn while the heralds announce that none shall sleep until the name of the "Unknown Prince" is discovered. Trumpandot tortures to death an unfortunate "Chinese peasant" when she refuses to reveal Justin's name.
Justin and Trumpandot are left alone. Cold and unyielding at first, Trumpandot finally succumbs to Justin's embraces and talk of free trade. Justin tells her his name and places himself in her power. Trumpandot summons the people of China-land and proudly declares she knows the name of the foreigner. It is Love, she states. As Justin and Trumpandot embrace, the crowd rejoices.
