Come See the Riddler of Yore

Ms. Day recognizes that dating comes with its trials and tribulations, and she understands that sometimes women have to turn the screws a little on a suitor when he burps aloud at a restaurant/doesn't hold the door/refuses to call. However, even Day thinks that Princess Turandot of long-ago Peking was a little harsh. This woman set up three bizarre riddles that amounted to these questions, as summed up by Opera News' John W. Freeman: What is born each night and dies each dawn? What flickers red and warm like a flame, yet is not fire? What is like ice but burns? Now, if a suitor answered correctly, he got to wed Turandot; if not, he had to lose his head — and many men lost their heads. See what Ms. Day means by harsh? To learn the answers to the princess' strange riddles and to find out who, if anyone, got to marry this royal catch, head to the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus (1 University Drive at Natural Bridge Road) — that's where Teatro Lirico D'Europa stages Puccini's opera Turandot at 7 p.m. Tickets to this performance cost $26 to $50 and can be purchased by calling 314-516-4949 or visiting www.touhill.org. The opera is presented in Italian with English supertitles.
Sun., Feb. 11