I also found Liù's behavior more understandable when I realized she's acknowledging that Calaf, her love for whom is so central to who she is, is now totally out of her reach whether she wins or loses. That sort of certainty would seem to make drastic gestures easier, particularly at that sort of age.

The Turandots I've heard have all come across as spending much more time wandering around the stratosphere than Liù does, though pitchwise they may be similar. I'm not overly familiar with how to describe voices, but I've always heard Turandot played in a way I found sort of high and thin, though in technical fact neither of these may have been true. I've always been someone annoyed with this, since I think she should sound as attractive as she looks and as interesting a person as Liù, or the sort lacks some intuitive sense -- she always sounds to me royal and slightly hysterically frigid. I always assumed this was just a conceptual disagreement between me and Puccini, but maybe there are other ways to do it.