A central image in Puccini's Turandot is that of death at dawn, an ending at a beginning. For the composer as well, his final, incomplete opera at the conclusion of a life's work also marks a broad leap into a new, more dissonant sound world. At the same time, Turandot is the culmination of the process of intertwining opposing forces—traditional and progressive—that distinguish his entire creative operatic output. But there is no resolution here. The dichotomy has only become more intense: the musical language of Puccini's last work simultaneously delves much deeper into the past and reaches further into the future than that of its predecessors.

Not surprisingly, the opera has created two divergent critical impressions. Ashbrook and Powers see the work as the end of the Great Tradition of Italian Romantic opera. They cite its division into definable units as evidence of the opera's place in the number opera tradition: “Turandot [is] a fitting Finale for the Great Tradition, […] a number opera in the grand manner of Semiramide and Aida.” Others also recognize long-established traits in the opera: Titone sees neo- Classic strategies in the work, while Budden and Davis place it in the tradition of Grand Opera. For Davis, the opera's large scale is the determining factor:

In an interview with Edoardo Savino in May 1924, Puccini seems to second this: “[Turandot] has above all a character of grandiosity.”

Certainly with the new Turandot, Puccini was turning away from his own success with naturalism and piccoli protagonists towards a more traditional storyline of fantasy and legend. Not since his first opera, Le villi, had the composer attempted this; as Carner writes, he was coming full circle.