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Giacomo Puccini

January 14, 2023

"Puccini" redirects here. For other uses, see Puccini (disambiguation).

Giacomo Puccini[n 1] (22 December 1858 – 29 November 1924)[1] was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest[2] and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late-Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera, he later developed his work in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.

Giacomo Puccini

His most renowned works are La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (1924), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas.

Family and education

 
Puccini's birthplace, seen in 1984 during restoration work

Puccini was born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini in Lucca, Italy, in 1858. He was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini (1813–1864) and Albina Magi (1830–1884). The Puccini family was established in Lucca as a local musical dynasty by Puccini's great-great-grandfather – also named Giacomo (1712–1781).[3][4] This first Giacomo Puccini was maestro di cappella of the Cattedrale di San Martino in Lucca.[5] He was succeeded in this position by his son, Antonio Puccini,[5] and then by Antonio's son Domenico, and Domenico's son Michele (father of the subject of this article).[3] Each of these men studied music at Bologna, and some took additional musical studies elsewhere.[3][5] Domenico Puccini studied for a time under Giovanni Paisiello.[3] Each composed music for the church. In addition, Domenico composed several operas, and Michele composed one opera.[3] Puccini's father Michele enjoyed a reputation throughout northern Italy, and his funeral was an occasion of public mourning, at which the then-famed composer Giovanni Pacini conducted a Requiem.[6]

With the Puccini family having occupied the position of maestro di cappella for 124 years (1740–1864) by the time of Michele's death, it was anticipated that Michele's son Giacomo would occupy that position as well when he was old enough.[4] However, when Michele Puccini died in 1864, his son Giacomo was only six years old, and thus not capable of taking over his father's job.[3] As a child, he nevertheless participated in the musical life of the Cattedrale di San Martino, as a member of the boys' choir and later as a substitute organist.[4]

Puccini was given a general education at the seminary of San Michele in Lucca, and then at the seminary of the cathedral.[3] One of Puccini's uncles, Fortunato Magi, supervised his musical education. Puccini got a diploma from the Pacini School of Music in Lucca in 1880, having studied there with his uncle Fortunato, and later with Carlo Angeloni, who had also instructed Alfredo Catalani. A grant from Queen Margherita, and assistance from another uncle, Nicholas Cerù, provided the funds necessary for Puccini to continue his studies at the Milan Conservatory,[3][7] where he studied composition with Stefano Ronchetti-Monteviti, Amilcare Ponchielli, and Antonio Bazzini. Puccini studied at the conservatory for three years, sharing a room with Pietro Mascagni. In 1880, at the age of 21, Puccini composed his Mass, which marks the culmination of his family's long association with church music in his native Lucca.[n 2]

Early career and first operas

Puccini wrote an orchestral piece called the Capriccio sinfonico as a thesis composition for the Milan Conservatory. Puccini's teachers Ponchielli and Bazzini were impressed by the work, and it was performed at a student concert at the conservatory on 14 July 1883, conducted by Franco Faccio. Puccini's work was favorably reviewed in the Milanese publication La Perseveranza,[3] and thus Puccini began to build a reputation as a young composer of promise in Milanese music circles.

Le Villi

After the premiere of the Capriccio sinfonico, Ponchielli and Puccini discussed the possibility that Puccini's next work might be an opera. Ponchielli invited Puccini to stay at his villa, where Puccini was introduced to another young man named Ferdinando Fontana.[3] Puccini and Fontana agreed to collaborate on an opera, for which Fontana would provide the libretto. The work, Le Villi, was entered into a competition sponsored by the Sozogno music publishing company in 1883 (the same competition in which Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana was the winner in 1889).[3] Although it did not win, Le Villi was later staged at the Teatro Dal Verme, premiering on 31 May 1884.[3] G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers assisted with the premier by printing the libretto without charge.[3] Fellow students from the Milan Conservatory formed a large part of the orchestra.[3] The performance was enough of a success that Casa Ricordi purchased the opera.[3] Revised into a two-act version with an intermezzo between the acts, Le Villi was performed at La Scala in Milan, on 24 January 1885. However, Ricordi did not publish the score until 1887, hindering further performance of the work.[3]

Edgar

Giulio Ricordi, head of G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers, was sufficiently impressed with Le Villi and its young composer that he commissioned a second opera, which would result in Edgar. Work was begun in 1884 when Fontana began working out the scenario for the libretto.[8] Puccini finished primary composition in 1887 and orchestration in 1888.[8] Edgar premiered at La Scala on 21 April 1889 to a lukewarm response.[8] The work was withdrawn for revisions after its third performance.[8] In a Milanese newspaper, Giulio Ricordi published a defense of Puccini's skill as a composer, while criticizing Fontana's libretto. A revised version met with success at the Teatro del Giglio in Puccini's native Lucca on 5 September 1891.[8] In 1892, further revisions reduced the length of the opera from four acts to three, in a version that was well received in Ferrara and was performed in Turin and in Spain.[8] Puccini made further revisions in 1901 and 1905, but the work never achieved popularity.[8] Without the personal support of Ricordi, Edgar might have cost Puccini his career. Puccini had eloped with his former piano student, the married Elvira Gemignani, and Ricordi's associates were willing to turn a blind eye to his lifestyle as long as he was successful. When Edgar failed, they suggested to Ricordi that he should drop Puccini, but Ricordi said that he would stay with him and continued his allowance until his next opera.[9]

Manon Lescaut

On commencing his next opera, Manon Lescaut, Puccini announced that he would write his own libretto so that "no fool of a librettist"[10] could spoil it. Ricordi persuaded him to accept Ruggero Leoncavallo as his librettist, but Puccini soon asked Ricordi to remove him from the project. Four other librettists were then involved with the opera, as Puccini constantly changed his mind about the structure of the piece. It was almost by accident that the final two, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, came together to complete the opera.

Manon Lescaut premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 2 February 1893.[11] By coincidence, Puccini's first enduringly popular opera appeared within a week of the premiere of Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, which was first performed on 9 February 1893.[11] In anticipation of the premiere, La Stampa wrote that Puccini was a young man concerning whom "great hopes" had a real basis ("un giovane che e tra i pochi sul quale le larghe speranze non siano benigne illusioni").[11] Because of the failure of Edgar, however, a failure of Manon Lescaut could have jeopardized Puccini's future as a composer. Although Giulio Ricordi, head of Casa Ricordi, was supportive of Puccini while Manon Lescaut was still in development, the Casa Ricordi board of directors was considering cutting off Puccini's financial support.[12] In any event, "Manon Lescaut was Puccini's first and only uncontested triumph, acclaimed by critics and public alike."[13] After the London premiere in 1894, George Bernard Shaw pronounced: "Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals."[14]

Manon Lescaut was a great success and established Puccini's reputation as the most promising rising composer of his generation, and the most likely "successor" to Verdi as the leading exponent of the Italian operatic tradition.[7] Illica and Giacosa returned as librettists for Puccini for his next three operas, probably his greatest successes: La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly.

Middle career

 
Original poster for Puccini's Tosca

La bohème

Puccini's next work after Manon Lescaut was La bohème, a four-act opera based on the 1851 book by Henri Murger, La Vie de Bohème. La bohème premiered in Turin in 1896, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.[15] Within a few years, it had been performed in many of the leading opera houses of Europe, including in Britain, as well as in the United States.[16] It was a popular success, and remains one of the most frequently performed operas ever written.

The libretto of the opera, freely adapted from Murger's episodic novel, combines comic elements of the impoverished life of the young protagonists with the tragic aspects, such as the death of the young seamstress Mimí. Puccini's own life as a young man in Milan served as a source of inspiration for elements of the libretto. During his years as a conservatory student and in the years before Manon Lescaut, he experienced poverty similar to that of the bohemians in La bohème, including chronic shortage of necessities like food, clothing and money to pay rent. Although Puccini was granted a small monthly stipend by the Congregation of Charity in Rome (Congregazione di caritá), he frequently had to pawn his possessions to cover basic expenses.[3][17] Early biographers such as Wakeling Dry and Eugenio Checchi, who were Puccini's contemporaries, drew express parallels between these incidents and particular events in the opera.[3][17] Checchi cited a diary kept by Puccini while he was still a student, which recorded an occasion in which, as in Act 4 of the opera, a single herring served as a dinner for four people.[3][17] Puccini himself commented: "I lived that Bohème, when there wasn't yet any thought stirring in my brain of seeking the theme of an opera". ("Quella Bohème io l'ho vissuta, quando ancora non mi mulinava nel cervello l'idea di cercarvi l'argomento per un'opera in musica.")[17]

Puccini's composition of La bohème was the subject of a public dispute between Puccini and fellow composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo. In early 1893, the two composers discovered that they were both engaged in writing operas based on Murger's work. Leoncavallo had started his work first, and he and his music publisher claimed to have "priority" on the subject (although Murger's work was in the public domain). Puccini responded that he started his own work without having any knowledge of Leoncavallo's project, and wrote: "Let him compose. I will compose. The audience will decide."[18] Puccini's opera premiered a year before that of Leoncavallo, and has been a perennial audience favorite, while Leoncavallo's version quickly faded into obscurity.[8]

Tosca

Puccini's next work after La bohème was Tosca (1900), arguably Puccini's first foray into verismo, the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence. Puccini had been considering an opera on this theme since he saw the play Tosca by Victorien Sardou in 1889, when he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou's permission for the work to be made into an opera: "I see in this Tosca the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music."[19]

 
Puccini photographed in 1908

The music of Tosca employs musical signatures for particular characters and emotions, which have been compared to Wagnerian leitmotivs, and some contemporaries saw Puccini as thereby adopting a new musical style influenced by Richard Wagner. Others viewed the work differently. Rejecting the allegation that Tosca displayed Wagnerian influences, a critic reporting on the Torino premiere of 20 February 1900 wrote: "I don't think you could find a more Puccinian score than this."[20]

Automobile crash and near death

On 25 February 1903, Puccini was seriously injured in a car crash during a nighttime journey on the road from Lucca to Torre del Lago. The car was driven by Puccini's chauffeur and was carrying Puccini, his future wife Elvira, and their son Antonio. It went off the road, fell several metres, and flipped over. Elvira and Antonio were flung from the car and escaped with minor injuries. Puccini's chauffeur, also thrown from the car, suffered a serious fracture of his femur. Puccini was pinned under the vehicle, with a severe fracture of his right leg and with a portion of the car pressing down on his chest. A doctor living near the scene of the crash, together with another person who came to investigate, saved Puccini from the wreckage.[21] The injury did not heal well, and Puccini remained under treatment for months. During the medical examinations that he underwent it was also found that he was suffering from a form of diabetes.[22] The accident and its consequences slowed Puccini's completion of his next work, Madama Butterfly.

Madama Butterfly

The original version of Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala on 17 February 1904 with Rosina Storchio in the title role. It was initially greeted with great hostility (probably largely owing to inadequate rehearsals). When Storchio's kimono accidentally lifted during the performance, some in the audience started shouting: "The butterfly is pregnant" and "There is the little Toscanini". The latter comment referred to her well publicised affair with Arturo Toscanini.[23] This version was in two acts;[24] after its disastrous premiere, Puccini withdrew the opera, revising it for what was virtually a second premiere at Brescia in May 1904[25] and performances in Buenos Aires, London, the US and Paris. In 1907, Puccini made his final revisions to the opera in a fifth version,[26] which has become known as the "standard version". Today, the standard version of the opera is the version most often performed around the world. However, the original 1904 version is occasionally performed as well, and has been recorded.[27]

Later works

 
Giacomo Puccini with conductor Arturo Toscanini

After 1904, Puccini's compositions were less frequent. In 1906 Giacosa died and, in 1909, there was scandal after Puccini's wife, Elvira, falsely accused their maid Doria Manfredi of having an affair with Puccini. Finally, in 1912, the death of Giulio Ricordi, Puccini's editor and publisher, ended a productive period of his career.

La fanciulla del West

 
Puccini in 1910

Puccini completed La fanciulla del West, based on a play by David Belasco, in 1910. This was commissioned by, and first performed at, the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910 with Met stars Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn for whom Puccini created the leading roles of Dick Johnson and Minnie. Toscanini, then the musical director of the Met, conducted.[28] This was the first world premiere of an opera at the Met.[29] The premiere was a great success.[30] However, the compositional style employed in the opera, with few stand-alone arias, was criticized at the time.[31] Some contemporaries also criticized the opera for failing to achieve an "American" tone.[32][33] However, the opera has been acclaimed for its incorporation of advanced harmonic language and rhythmic complexity into the Italian operatic form.[34] In addition, one aria from the opera, Ch'ella mi creda, has become a staple of compilation albums by operatic tenors. It is said that during World War I, Italian soldiers sang this aria to maintain their spirits.[13][35] The 2008 Italian film, Puccini e la fanciulla (Puccini and the Girl), is based on the period of his life when he was composing the opera.

La rondine

Puccini completed the score of La rondine, to a libretto by Giuseppe Adami in 1916 after two years of work, and it was premiered at the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo on 27 March 1917. The opera had been originally commissioned by Vienna's Carltheater; however, the outbreak of World War I prevented the premiere from being given there. Moreover, the firm of Ricordi had declined the score of the opera – Giulio Ricordi's son Tito was then in charge and he described the opera as "bad Lehár".[36] It was taken up by their rival, Lorenzo Sonzogno, who arranged the first performance in neutral Monaco.[37] The composer continued to work at revising this, the least known of his mature operas, until his death.

La rondine was initially conceived as an operetta, but Puccini eliminated spoken dialogue, rendering the work closer in form to an opera. A modern reviewer described La rondine as "a continuous fabric of lilting waltz tunes, catchy pop-styled melodies, and nostalgic love music," while characterizing the plot as recycling characters and incidents from works like 'La traviata' and 'Die Fledermaus'.[38]

Il trittico: Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi

In 1918, Il trittico premiered in New York. This work is composed of three one-act operas, each concerning the concealment of a death: a horrific episode (Il tabarro) in the style of the Parisian Grand Guignol, a sentimental tragedy (Suor Angelica), and a comedy (Gianni Schicchi).

Turandot

Turandot, Puccini's final opera, was left unfinished at the composer's death in November 1924, and the last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano based on the composer's sketches. The libretto for Turandot was based on a play of the same name by Carlo Gozzi.[39] The music of the opera is heavily inflected with pentatonic motifs, intended to produce an Asiatic flavor to the music. Turandot contains a number of memorable stand-alone arias, among them Nessun dorma.

Librettists

The libretto of Edgar was a significant factor in the failure of that opera. Thereafter, especially throughout his middle and late career, Puccini was extremely selective, and at times indecisive, in his choice of subject matter for new works.[8] Puccini was deeply involved in the process of writing the libretto itself, requiring many iterative revisions of his libretti in terms of both structure and text. Puccini's relationships with his librettists were at times very difficult. His publisher, Casa Ricordi, was frequently required to mediate disputes and impasses between them.[18]

Puccini explored many possible subjects that he ultimately rejected only after a significant amount of effort—such as the creation of a libretto—had been put into them.[40] Among the subjects that Puccini seriously considered, but abandoned, were: Cristoforo Sly, Anima Allegra (based on the play El genio alegre by Serafín and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero), Two Little Wooden Shoes (I due zoccoletti) (a short story by Maria Louise Ramé, a.k.a. Ouida), the life of Marie Antoinette, Margherita da Cortona, and Conchita (based on the novel La Femme et le pantin – The Woman and the Puppet, by Pierre Loüys).[18] Some of these abandoned subjects were taken up and turned into operas by other composers. For example, Franco Vittadini made an opera of Anima Allegra, Mascagni's opera Lodoletta is derived from Two Little Wooden Shoes, and Riccardo Zandonai eventually wrote Conchita.[18]

Torre del Lago

 
Torre del Lago, Italy, Villa Puccini

From 1891 onwards, Puccini spent most of his time, when not traveling on business, at Torre del Lago, a small community about fifteen miles from Lucca situated between the Ligurian Sea and Lake Massaciuccoli, just south of Viareggio. Torre del Lago was the primary place for Puccini to indulge his love of hunting. "I love hunting, I love cars: and for these things, in the isolation of Torre del Lago, I keep the faith." ("Amo la caccia, adoro l'automobile: e a questo e a quella nelle solitudini di Torre del Lago serbo intera la mia fede.")[41]

By 1900, he had acquired land and built a villa on the lake, now known as the "Villa Puccini". He lived there until 1921, when pollution produced by peat works on the lake forced him to move to Viareggio, a few kilometres north. After his death, a mausoleum was created in the Villa Puccini and the composer is buried there in the chapel, along with his wife and son who died later.

The Villa Museo was owned by his granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini, until her death, and is open to the public. An annual Festival Puccini is held at Torre del Lago.

 
Puccini on horseback

Marriage and affairs

 
Puccini with his wife Elvira and son Antonio, 1900

In the autumn of 1884, Puccini began a relationship with a married woman named Elvira Gemignani (née Bonturi, 1860–1930) in Lucca. Elvira's husband, Narciso Gemignani, was an "unrepentant womanizer", and Elvira's marriage was not a happy one.[8] Elvira became pregnant by Puccini, and their son, Antonio (1886–1946), was born in Monza. Elvira left Lucca when the pregnancy began to show, and gave birth elsewhere to avoid gossip.[8] Elvira, Antonio and Elvira's daughter by Narciso, Fosca (1880–1968), began to live with Puccini shortly afterwards. Narciso was killed by the husband of a woman that Narciso had an affair with, dying on 26 February 1903, one day after Puccini's car accident.[8] Only then, in early 1904, were Puccini and Elvira able to marry, and to legitimize Antonio.

The marriage between Puccini and Elvira was also troubled by infidelity, as Puccini had frequent affairs himself, including with well-known singers such as Maria Jeritza, Emmy Destinn, Cesira Ferrani, and Hariclea Darclée.[8] In 1906, while attending the opening of Madama Butterfly in Budapest, Puccini fell in love with Blanke Lendvai, the sister of Hungarian composer Ervin Lendvai (his friend and protégé for many years).[42] Blanke and Puccini exchanged love letters until 1911, when he started an affair with German aristocrat Baroness Josephine von Stangel, which lasted for six years.[43]

In 1909, Puccini's wife Elvira publicly accused Doria Manfredi, a maid working for the Puccini family, of having an affair with the composer. After the accusation, Manfredi committed suicide. However, an autopsy determined that Manfredi had died a virgin, refuting the allegations made against her. Elvira Puccini was prosecuted for slander, and was sentenced to more than five months in prison, although a payment to the Manfredi family by Puccini spared Elvira from having to serve the sentence.[44] Some music critics and interpreters of Puccini's work have speculated that the psychological effects of this incident on Puccini interfered with his ability to complete compositions later in his career, and also influenced the development of his characters such as Liù (from Turandot), a slave girl who dies tragically by suicide.[45][46][47]

In 2007, documents were found in the possession of Nadia Manfredi, a descendant of the Manfredi family, which indicated that Puccini was actually having an affair with Giulia Manfredi, Doria's cousin. Upon the discovery of these documents, the press began to allege that Puccini had fathered Giulia Manfredi's son Antonio, which would make Nadia a granddaughter of Puccini.[44][48]

Politics

Unlike Wagner and Verdi, Puccini was not active in politics. Puccini biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz wrote: "Throughout this entire period [of World War I and its immediate aftermath], Puccini's interest in politics was close to zero, as it had been all his life, so far as one can judge. He seemed almost indifferent to everything from mayoral elections in Viareggio to cabinet appointments in Rome."[18] Another biographer speculates that Puccini may have been—if he had a political philosophy—a monarchist.[49]

Puccini's indifference to politics caused him problems during World War I. Puccini's long-standing and close friendship with Toscanini was interrupted for nearly a decade because of an argument in the summer of 1914 (in the opening months of the war) during which Puccini remarked that Italy could benefit from German organization.[18] Puccini was also criticized during the war for his work on La rondine under a 1913 commission contract with an Austrian theater after Italy and Austria-Hungary became opponents in the war in 1915 (although the contract was ultimately cancelled). Puccini did not participate in the public war effort, but privately rendered assistance to individuals and families affected by the war.[18]

In 1919, Puccini was commissioned to write music to an ode by Fausto Salvatori [it] honoring Italy's victories in World War I. The work, Inno a Roma (Hymn to Rome), was to premiere on 21 April 1919, during a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of Rome. The premiere was delayed to 1 June 1919, when it was played at the opening of a gymnastics competition.[50] Although not written for the fascists, Inno a Roma was widely played during Fascist street parades and public ceremonies.[51]

Puccini had some contact with Benito Mussolini and the Italian Fascist Party in the year preceding his death. In 1923 the Fascist Party in Viareggio made Puccini an honorary member and sent him a membership card.[18] However, evidence that Puccini was actually a member of the Fascist Party is ambiguous.[52] The Italian Senate has traditionally included a small number of members appointed in recognition of their cultural contributions to the nation. Puccini hoped to attain this honor, which had been granted to Verdi, and undertook to use his connections to bring about the appointment. While honorary senators could vote, there is no indication that Puccini sought the appointment for this purpose. Puccini also wished to establish a national theater in Viareggio, a project which would require government support. Puccini met with Mussolini twice, in November and December 1923, seeking support for the theater project. While the theater project never came to fruition, Puccini was named Senator (senatore a vita) a few months before his death.[18]

At the time Puccini met with Mussolini, Mussolini had been prime minister for approximately a year, but his party had not yet taken full control of the Italian Parliament through the violence and irregularities of the 1924 general election. Puccini was no longer alive when Mussolini announced the end of representative government, and the beginning of a fascist dictatorship, in his speech before the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January 1925.[53]

Death

 
Puccini in 1924

A chain smoker of Toscano cigars and cigarettes, Puccini began to complain of chronic sore throats towards the end of 1923. A diagnosis of throat cancer led his doctors to recommend a new and experimental radiation therapy treatment, which was being offered in Brussels. Puccini and his wife never knew how serious the cancer was, as the news was revealed only to his son.

Puccini died in Brussels on 29 November 1924, aged 65, from complications after the treatment; uncontrolled bleeding led to a heart attack the day after surgery. News of his death reached Rome during a performance of La bohème. The opera was immediately stopped, and the orchestra played Chopin's Funeral March for the stunned audience.[54] He was buried in Milan, in Toscanini's family tomb, but that was always intended as a temporary measure. In 1926 his son arranged for the transfer of his father's remains to a specially created chapel inside the Puccini villa at Torre del Lago.

Style and critical reception

Most broadly, Puccini wrote in the style of the late-Romantic period of classical music (see Romantic music).[55] Music historians also refer to Puccini as a component of the giovane scuola ("young school"), a cohort of composers who came onto the Italian operatic scene as Verdi's career came to an end, such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and others mentioned below.[56] Puccini is also frequently referred to as a verismo composer.[57]

Puccini's career extended from the end of the Romantic period into the modern period. He consciously attempted to 'update' his style to keep pace with new trends, but did not attempt to fully adopt a modern style. One critic, Andrew Davis, has stated: "Loyalty toward nineteenth-century Italian-opera traditions and, more generally, toward the musical language of his Tuscan heritage is one of the clearest features of Puccini's music."[55] Davis also identifies, however, a "stylistic pluralism" in Puccini's work, including influences from "the German symphonic tradition, French harmonic and orchestrational traditions, and, to a lesser extent, aspects of Wagnerian chromaticism".[55] In addition, Puccini frequently sought to introduce music or sounds from outside sources into his operas, such as his use of Chinese folk melodies in Turandot.

All of Puccini's operas have at least one set piece for a lead singer that is separate enough from its surroundings that it can be treated as a distinct aria, and most of his works have several of these. At the same time, Puccini's work continued the trend away from operas constructed from a series of set pieces, and instead used a more "through-composed" or integrated construction. His works are strongly melodic. In orchestration, Puccini frequently doubled the vocal line in unison or at octaves in order to emphasize and strengthen the melodic line.[55]

Verismo is a style of Italian opera that began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s.[58] The style is distinguished by realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes. Verismo does not usually employ the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism. Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, and Andrea Chénier are uniformly considered to be verismo operas. Puccini's career as a composer is almost entirely coincident in time with the verismo movement. Only his Le Villi and Edgar preceded Cavalleria Rusticana. Some view Puccini as essentially a verismo composer,[57] while others, although acknowledging that he took part in the movement to some degree, do not view him as a "pure" verismo composer.[59] In addition, critics differ as to the degree to which particular operas by Puccini are, or are not, properly described as verismo operas. Two of Puccini's operas, Tosca and Il Tabarro, are universally considered to be verismo operas.[60] Puccini scholar Mosco Carner places only two of Puccini's operas other than Tosca and Il tabarro within the verismo school: Madama Butterfly, and La Fanciulla del West.[61] Because only three verismo works that were not composed by Puccini continue to appear regularly on stage (the aforementioned Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, and Andrea Chénier), Puccini's contribution has had lasting significance to the genre.

Both during his lifetime and in posterity, Puccini's success outstripped other Italian opera composers of his time, and he has been matched in this regard by only a handful of composers in the entire history of opera. Between 2004 and 2018, Puccini ranked third (behind Verdi and Mozart) in the number of performances of his operas worldwide, as surveyed by Operabase. Three of his operas (La bohème, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly) were amongst the 10 most frequently performed operas worldwide.[62]

Gustav Kobbé, the original author of The Complete Opera Book, a standard reference work on opera, wrote in the 1919 edition: "Puccini is considered the most important figure in operatic Italy today, the successor of Verdi, if there is any."[63] Other contemporaries shared this view.[7] Italian opera composers of the generation with whom Puccini was compared included Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945), Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919), Umberto Giordano (1867–1948), Francesco Cilea (1866–1950), Baron Pierantonio Tasca (1858–1934), Gaetano Coronaro (1852–1908), and Alberto Franchetti (1860–1942).[7][56] Only three composers, and three works, by Italian contemporaries of Puccini appear on the Operabase list of most-performed works: Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni, Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo, and Andrea Chénier by Umberto Giordano. Kobbé contrasted Puccini's ability to achieve "sustained" success with the failure of Mascagni and Leoncavallo to produce more than merely "one sensationally successful short opera".[63] By the time of Puccini's death in 1924, he had earned $4 million from his works.[64]

Although the popular success of Puccini's work is undeniable, and his mastery of the craft of composition has been consistently recognized, opinion among critics as to the artistic value of his work has always been divided. Grove Music Online described Puccini's strengths as a composer as follows:

Puccini succeeded in mastering the orchestra as no other Italian had done before him, creating new forms by manipulating structures inherited from the great Italian tradition, loading them with bold harmonic progressions which had little or nothing to do with what was happening then in Italy, though they were in step with the work of French, Austrian and German colleagues.[65]

In his work on Puccini, Julian Budden describes Puccini as a gifted and original composer, noting the innovation hidden in the popularity of works such as "Che gelida manina". He describes the aria in musical terms (the signature embedded in the harmony for example), and points out that its structure was rather unheard of at the time, having three distinct musical paragraphs that nonetheless form a complete and coherent whole.[66] This gumption in musical experimentation was the essence of Puccini's style, as evidenced in his diverse settings and use of the motif to express ideas beyond those in the story and text.[67]

Puccini has, however, consistently been the target of condescension by some music critics who find his music insufficiently sophisticated or difficult.[68] Some have explicitly condemned his efforts to please his audience, such as this contemporary Italian critic:

He willingly stops himself at minor genius, stroking the taste of the public ... obstinately shunning too-daring innovation ... A little heroism, but not taken to great heights; a little bit of veristic comedy, but brief; a lot of sentiment and romantic idyll: this is the recipe in which he finds happiness. ([E]gli si arresta volentieri alla piccola genialità, accarezzando il gusto del pubblico ... rifuggendo ostinato dalle troppo ardite innovazioni. ... Un po' di eroismo, ma non spinto a grandi altezze, un po' di commedia verista, ma breve; molto idillio sentimentale e romantico: ecco la ricetta in cui egli compiace.)[69]

Budden attempted to explain the paradox of Puccini's immense popular success and technical mastery on the one hand, and the relative disregard in which his work has been held by academics:

No composer communicates more directly with an audience than Puccini. Indeed, for many years he has remained a victim of his own popularity; hence the resistance to his music in academic circles. Be it remembered, however, that Verdi's melodies were once dismissed as barrel-organ fodder. The truth is that music that appeals immediately to a public becomes subject to bad imitation, which can cast a murky shadow over the original. So long as counterfeit Puccinian melody dominated the world of sentimental operetta, many found it difficult to come to terms with the genuine article. Now that the current coin of light music has changed, the composer admired by Schoenberg, Ravel, and Stravinsky can be seen to emerge in his full stature.[14]

Puccini studies

Founded in 1996 in Lucca, the Centro di studi Giacomo Puccini embraces a wide range of approaches to the study of Puccini's work. In the US, the American Center for Puccini Studies specializes in the presentation of unusual performing editions of composer's works and introduces neglected or unknown Puccini pieces. It was founded in 2004 by the singer and director Harry Dunstan.

Works

Main article: List of compositions by Giacomo Puccini
 
"Donna non vidi mai"
From Manon Lescaut, act 1; Enrico Caruso (1913)
"O soave fanciulla"
From La bohème, act 1; Caruso and Nellie Melba (1906)
"O mio babbino caro"
From Gianni Schicchi, Frances Alda (1919)
Problems playing these files? See media help.

Puccini wrote orchestral pieces, sacred music, chamber music, solo music for piano and organ and songs for voice and piano, most notably his 1880 mass Messa di gloria, his Preludio Sinfonico of 1882, and his 1890 string quartet movement Crisantemi. However, he is primarily known for his operas:

Notes

  1. ^ Full name: Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (UK: /ˈdʒækəmoʊ pʊˈtʃiːni/ JAK-ə-moh puu-CHEE-nee, US: /ˈdʒɑːkəmoʊ puːˈtʃiːni/ JAH-kə-moh poo-CHEE-nee, Italian: [ˈdʒaːkomo putˈtʃiːni]).
  2. ^ Although Puccini himself correctly titled the work a Messa, referring to a setting of the Ordinary of the Catholic Mass, today the work is popularly known as his Messa di Gloria, a name that technically refers to a setting of only the first two prayers of the Ordinary, the Kyrie and the Gloria, while omitting the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei.

References

  1. ^ "Giacomo Puccini". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  2. ^ Ravenni & Girardi n.d., Introduction.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Dry 1905, p. [page needed]
  4. ^ a b c "Cattedrale di S. Martino". Centro di Studi Giacomo Puccini. Retrieved 3 November 2012.
  5. ^ a b c Gervasoni 1812, pp. 240–241
  6. ^ Streatfeild 1895, p. 269.
  7. ^ a b c d Streatfeild, R. A. (1897). The Opera. London: John C. Nimmo.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Girardi, Michele (2000). Puccini:His International Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  9. ^ Carner 1959, p. 49.
  10. ^ Carner 1959, p. [page needed].
  11. ^ a b c "Arte e Scienze". La Stampa. 2 February 1893.
  12. ^ Phillips-Matz 2002, p. 64.
  13. ^ a b Sadie & Macy 2006, p. [page needed]
  14. ^ a b Budden 2002, p. 107
  15. ^ Budden 2002, p. 494.
  16. ^ Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "La bohème". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
  17. ^ a b c d Checchi 1897, pp. 470–81
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i Phillips-Matz 2002, p. [page needed]
  19. ^ Phillips-Matz 2002, pp. 106–107.
  20. ^ "La prima della Tosca del M. Puccini al Teatro Regio". La Stampa (in Italian). 21 February 1900.
  21. ^ "Una disgrazia automobilistica al maestro Puccini". La Stampa. 27 February 1903.
  22. ^ Phillips-Matz 2002, p. 123.
  23. ^ "Puccini: Madama Butterfly". www.columbia.edu. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
  24. ^ Version 1 (Milan, 1904). (403 pp) G. Ricordi & C.: Milano – Roma – Napoli – Palermo – Parigi – Londra – Lipsia. New York: Boosey & Co. Buenos Aires: Breyer Hermanos. This version was withdrawn after the opening night. See Version History
  25. ^ Phillips-Matz 2002, p. 146.
  26. ^ Version 5, the "Standard Version". (266 pp) 1907 G. Ricordi & C.: New York – Milan – Rome – Naples – Palermo – London – Paris – Leipsig – Buenos Ayres – S. Paulo. See Version History
  27. ^ Davis, Peter (20 January 1997). "Selling Old Scores". New York. Vol. 30, no. 2.
  28. ^ Smith 2004, p. 544.
  29. ^ Randall & Davis 2005, p. 42.
  30. ^ "New York Acclaims Puccini's New Opera". Theatre Magazine. Vol. 13, no. 119. January 1911.
  31. ^ "The Stage". Munsey's Magazine. Vol. 44. 1911. p. 6.
  32. ^ Eaton 1911.
  33. ^ "Plays and Players". Hampton's Magazine. 26 (3): 364. March 1911. In Puccini's Girl of the Golden West we get a highly amusing operatic picture of what did not take place in California in '49.
  34. ^ Siff 2012.
  35. ^ Osborne 1982, p. 195.
  36. ^ Phillips-Matz 2002, p. 245.
  37. ^ Gavin Plumley, "Puccini's Bittersweet Operetta", San Francisco Opera program, Nov/Dec 2007, pp. 30–31
  38. ^ Davis, Peter G. (3 September 1984). "Puccini mit Schlag". New York. Vol. 17, no. 35.
  39. ^ Ashbrook & Powers 1991, p. 43.
  40. ^ Phillips-Matz 2002, passim.
  41. ^ Villante, Luigi Alberto (11 February 1905). "I progetti di Giacomo Puccini". La Stampa (in Italian). Vol. 39, no. 42.
  42. ^ Phillips-Matz 2002, p. 160.
  43. ^ Phillips-Matz 2002, p. 223.
  44. ^ a b Mourby 2008
  45. ^ "Interview: San Francisco Opera's Music Director Designate Nicola Luisotti on Covent Garden's Turandot and his plans for his new company". Retrieved 25 August 2012.
  46. ^ . Naxos. 26 June 2008. Archived from the original on 7 January 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
  47. ^ Weaver & Puccini 1994, p. 375.
  48. ^ Espinoza 2007.
  49. ^ Fairtile, Linda Beard (1999). Giacomo Puccini: A Guide to Research. Psychology Press. ISBN 0-8153-2033-7.
  50. ^ Weaver & Puccini 1994, p. 301.
  51. ^ Puccini biography 2 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine prepared by San Francisco Opera Company
  52. ^ Wilson 2007, p. 192.
  53. ^ Pugliese, Stanislao G. (2004). Fascism, Anti-Fascism, and the Resistance in Italy: 1919 To the Present. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-3122-8. Mussolini's speech before the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January 1925 is universally recognized as the beginning of the full fascist dictatorship. Previously, Mussolini had tried to maintain a facade of parliamentary, representative government.
  54. ^ "The Death of Giacomo Puccini". The British Newspaper Archive. 29 November 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  55. ^ a b c d Davis, Andrew C. (2010). Il Trittico, Turandot, and Puccini's Late Style. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 8ff. ISBN 978-0-253-35514-0.
  56. ^ a b Mallach, Alan (2007). The Autumn of Italian Opera: From Verismo to Modernism, 1890–1915. Lebanon, New Hampshire: Northeastern University Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-55553-683-1.
  57. ^ a b Montgomery 2006, p. [page needed]
  58. ^ "Verismo" in Stanley Sadie (ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London: Macmillan/New York: Grove, 1980, vol. 19, p. 670, ISBN 1-56159-174-2
  59. ^ Berger 2005, p. 7.
  60. ^ Fisher 2003, p. [page needed].
  61. ^ Carner, Mosco (1985). Giacomo Puccini, 'Tosca' (reprinted ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-521-22824-7.
  62. ^ "Statistics" (Statistics by work and by composer, select "From 2004" and "To 2018"). Operabase. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  63. ^ a b Kobbé, Gustav (1919). The Complete Opera Book: The stories of the operas, together with 400 of the leading airs and motives in musical notation. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 638.
  64. ^ "The Puccini Centenary". Life. Vol. 45, no. 23. 8 December 1958. p. 127.
  65. ^ Ravenni & Girardi n.d., #11 Assessment.
  66. ^ Budden 2002, pp. 163–164.
  67. ^ Voicu, Mirela (2017). "Dramaturgical construction of the character Mimì from opera Boema de Giacomo Puccini". Învăţământ, Cercetare, Creaţie. Editura Muzicală. III (1): 175–179 – via Central and Eastern European Online Library. (subscription required)[need quotation to verify]
  68. ^ Groos, Arthur; Parker, Roger (1986). Giacomo Puccini, La Bohème (reprinted ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 127. ISBN 0-521-26489-8.
  69. ^ "Puccini, Franchetti, Leoncavallo". La Stampa. 8 August 1903.

Sources

  • Ashbrook, William; Powers, Harold (1991). Puccini's Turandot: The End of the Great Tradition. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-02712-8.
  • Berger, William (2005). Puccini Without Excuses: A Refreshing Reassessment of the World's Most Popular Composer. Random House Digital. ISBN 1-4000-7778-8.
  • Budden, Julian (2002). Puccini: His Life and Works. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816468-5.
  • Carner, Mosco (1959). Puccini: A Critical Biography. Alfred Knopf.
  • Checchi, Eugenio (December 1897). Francisco Protonotari (ed.). Nuova Antologia (in Italian). Direzione della Nuova Antologia. pp. 470–481.
  • Dry, Wakeling (1905). Giacomo Puccini. London & New York: John Lane.
  • Eaton, W. P. (March 1911). "Where We Stand in Opera". The American Magazine. 71 (5).
  • Espinoza, Javier (29 September 2007). "Revealed: the identity of Puccini's secret lover". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  • Fisher, Burton D. (2003). Puccini's 'Il Trittico'. Miami: Opera Journeys Publishing. ISBN 0-9771455-6-5.
  • Gervasoni, Carlo (1812). Nuova teoria di musica ricavata dall'odierna pratica [New theory of music distilled from modern-day practice]. Milan: Blanchon.
  • Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane (2002). Puccini: A Biography. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 1-55553-530-5.
  • Montgomery, Alan (2006). Opera Coaching: Professional Techniques and Considerations. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-0-415-97601-5.
  • Mourby, Adrian (6 July 2008). "Scandalissimo! Puccini's sex life exposed". The Independent. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  • Osborne, Charles (1982). The Complete Operas of Puccini: A Critical Guide. Da Capo Press.
  • Randall, Annie J.; Davis, Rosalind G. (2005). Puccini and the Girl – History and Reception of the Girl of the Golden West. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-70389-4.
  • Ravenni, Gabriella Biagi; Girardi, Michele (n.d.). "Giacomo (Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria) Puccini (ii)". Grove Music Online.
  • Siff, Ira (July 2012). "Puccini: La Fanciulla del West". Opera News. 77 (1).
  • Sadie, Stanley; Macy, Laura, eds. (2006). The Grove Book of Operas (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530907-2.
  • Sadie, Stanley (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London: Macmillan/New York: Grove, 1980, ISBN 1-56159-174-2, p. 203.
  • Smith, Peter Fox (2004). A Passion for Opera. Trafalgar Square Books. ISBN 1-57076-280-5.
  • Streatfeild, Richard Alexander (1895). Masters of Italian music. C. Scribner's Sons.
  • Weaver, William; Puccini, Simonetta, eds. (1994). The Puccini Companion. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-02930-7.
  • Wilson, Alexandra (2007). The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity. Cambridge University Press.

Further reading

  • Cagnoni, Romano; Ravenni, Gabriella Biagi. Giacomo Puccini: luoghi e suggestioni (2008), Maria Pacini Fazzi (ed.), photographs by Romano Cagnoni ISBN 978-88-7246-918-7
  • Kendell, Colin (2012), The Complete Puccini: The Story of the World's Most Popular Operatic Composer, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4456-0445-9
  • Keolker, James, Last Acts: The Operas of Puccini and His Italian Contemporaries from Alfano to Zandonai, 2000. ISBN 978-0-9676604-3-1

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Giacomo Puccini.
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Giacomo Puccini.

January 14, 2023
giacomo, puccini, puccini, redirects, here, other, uses, puccini, disambiguation, december, 1858, november, 1924, italian, composer, known, primarily, operas, regarded, greatest, most, successful, proponent, italian, opera, after, verdi, descended, from, long,. Puccini redirects here For other uses see Puccini disambiguation Giacomo Puccini n 1 22 December 1858 29 November 1924 1 was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas Regarded as the greatest 2 and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi he was descended from a long line of composers stemming from the late Baroque era Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late 19th century Romantic Italian opera he later developed his work in the realistic verismo style of which he became one of the leading exponents Giacomo Puccini His most renowned works are La boheme 1896 Tosca 1900 Madama Butterfly 1904 and Turandot 1924 all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas Contents 1 Family and education 2 Early career and first operas 2 1 Le Villi 2 2 Edgar 2 3 Manon Lescaut 3 Middle career 3 1 La boheme 3 2 Tosca 3 3 Automobile crash and near death 3 4 Madama Butterfly 4 Later works 4 1 La fanciulla del West 4 2 La rondine 4 3 Il trittico Il tabarro Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi 4 4 Turandot 5 Librettists 6 Torre del Lago 7 Marriage and affairs 8 Politics 9 Death 10 Style and critical reception 11 Puccini studies 12 Works 13 Notes 14 References 14 1 Sources 15 Further reading 16 External linksFamily and education Edit Puccini s birthplace seen in 1984 during restoration work Puccini was born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini in Lucca Italy in 1858 He was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini 1813 1864 and Albina Magi 1830 1884 The Puccini family was established in Lucca as a local musical dynasty by Puccini s great great grandfather also named Giacomo 1712 1781 3 4 This first Giacomo Puccini was maestro di cappella of the Cattedrale di San Martino in Lucca 5 He was succeeded in this position by his son Antonio Puccini 5 and then by Antonio s son Domenico and Domenico s son Michele father of the subject of this article 3 Each of these men studied music at Bologna and some took additional musical studies elsewhere 3 5 Domenico Puccini studied for a time under Giovanni Paisiello 3 Each composed music for the church In addition Domenico composed several operas and Michele composed one opera 3 Puccini s father Michele enjoyed a reputation throughout northern Italy and his funeral was an occasion of public mourning at which the then famed composer Giovanni Pacini conducted a Requiem 6 With the Puccini family having occupied the position of maestro di cappella for 124 years 1740 1864 by the time of Michele s death it was anticipated that Michele s son Giacomo would occupy that position as well when he was old enough 4 However when Michele Puccini died in 1864 his son Giacomo was only six years old and thus not capable of taking over his father s job 3 As a child he nevertheless participated in the musical life of the Cattedrale di San Martino as a member of the boys choir and later as a substitute organist 4 Puccini was given a general education at the seminary of San Michele in Lucca and then at the seminary of the cathedral 3 One of Puccini s uncles Fortunato Magi supervised his musical education Puccini got a diploma from the Pacini School of Music in Lucca in 1880 having studied there with his uncle Fortunato and later with Carlo Angeloni who had also instructed Alfredo Catalani A grant from Queen Margherita and assistance from another uncle Nicholas Ceru provided the funds necessary for Puccini to continue his studies at the Milan Conservatory 3 7 where he studied composition with Stefano Ronchetti Monteviti Amilcare Ponchielli and Antonio Bazzini Puccini studied at the conservatory for three years sharing a room with Pietro Mascagni In 1880 at the age of 21 Puccini composed his Mass which marks the culmination of his family s long association with church music in his native Lucca n 2 Early career and first operas EditPuccini wrote an orchestral piece called the Capriccio sinfonico as a thesis composition for the Milan Conservatory Puccini s teachers Ponchielli and Bazzini were impressed by the work and it was performed at a student concert at the conservatory on 14 July 1883 conducted by Franco Faccio Puccini s work was favorably reviewed in the Milanese publication La Perseveranza 3 and thus Puccini began to build a reputation as a young composer of promise in Milanese music circles Le Villi Edit After the premiere of the Capriccio sinfonico Ponchielli and Puccini discussed the possibility that Puccini s next work might be an opera Ponchielli invited Puccini to stay at his villa where Puccini was introduced to another young man named Ferdinando Fontana 3 Puccini and Fontana agreed to collaborate on an opera for which Fontana would provide the libretto The work Le Villi was entered into a competition sponsored by the Sozogno music publishing company in 1883 the same competition in which Pietro Mascagni s Cavalleria rusticana was the winner in 1889 3 Although it did not win Le Villi was later staged at the Teatro Dal Verme premiering on 31 May 1884 3 G Ricordi amp Co music publishers assisted with the premier by printing the libretto without charge 3 Fellow students from the Milan Conservatory formed a large part of the orchestra 3 The performance was enough of a success that Casa Ricordi purchased the opera 3 Revised into a two act version with an intermezzo between the acts Le Villi was performed at La Scala in Milan on 24 January 1885 However Ricordi did not publish the score until 1887 hindering further performance of the work 3 Edgar Edit Giulio Ricordi head of G Ricordi amp Co music publishers was sufficiently impressed with Le Villi and its young composer that he commissioned a second opera which would result in Edgar Work was begun in 1884 when Fontana began working out the scenario for the libretto 8 Puccini finished primary composition in 1887 and orchestration in 1888 8 Edgar premiered at La Scala on 21 April 1889 to a lukewarm response 8 The work was withdrawn for revisions after its third performance 8 In a Milanese newspaper Giulio Ricordi published a defense of Puccini s skill as a composer while criticizing Fontana s libretto A revised version met with success at the Teatro del Giglio in Puccini s native Lucca on 5 September 1891 8 In 1892 further revisions reduced the length of the opera from four acts to three in a version that was well received in Ferrara and was performed in Turin and in Spain 8 Puccini made further revisions in 1901 and 1905 but the work never achieved popularity 8 Without the personal support of Ricordi Edgar might have cost Puccini his career Puccini had eloped with his former piano student the married Elvira Gemignani and Ricordi s associates were willing to turn a blind eye to his lifestyle as long as he was successful When Edgar failed they suggested to Ricordi that he should drop Puccini but Ricordi said that he would stay with him and continued his allowance until his next opera 9 Manon Lescaut Edit On commencing his next opera Manon Lescaut Puccini announced that he would write his own libretto so that no fool of a librettist 10 could spoil it Ricordi persuaded him to accept Ruggero Leoncavallo as his librettist but Puccini soon asked Ricordi to remove him from the project Four other librettists were then involved with the opera as Puccini constantly changed his mind about the structure of the piece It was almost by accident that the final two Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa came together to complete the opera Manon Lescaut premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 2 February 1893 11 By coincidence Puccini s first enduringly popular opera appeared within a week of the premiere of Verdi s last opera Falstaff which was first performed on 9 February 1893 11 In anticipation of the premiere La Stampa wrote that Puccini was a young man concerning whom great hopes had a real basis un giovane che e tra i pochi sul quale le larghe speranze non siano benigne illusioni 11 Because of the failure of Edgar however a failure of Manon Lescaut could have jeopardized Puccini s future as a composer Although Giulio Ricordi head of Casa Ricordi was supportive of Puccini while Manon Lescaut was still in development the Casa Ricordi board of directors was considering cutting off Puccini s financial support 12 In any event Manon Lescaut was Puccini s first and only uncontested triumph acclaimed by critics and public alike 13 After the London premiere in 1894 George Bernard Shaw pronounced Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals 14 Manon Lescaut was a great success and established Puccini s reputation as the most promising rising composer of his generation and the most likely successor to Verdi as the leading exponent of the Italian operatic tradition 7 Illica and Giacosa returned as librettists for Puccini for his next three operas probably his greatest successes La boheme Tosca and Madama Butterfly Middle career Edit Original poster for Puccini s Tosca La boheme Edit Puccini s next work after Manon Lescaut was La boheme a four act opera based on the 1851 book by Henri Murger La Vie de Boheme La boheme premiered in Turin in 1896 conducted by Arturo Toscanini 15 Within a few years it had been performed in many of the leading opera houses of Europe including in Britain as well as in the United States 16 It was a popular success and remains one of the most frequently performed operas ever written The libretto of the opera freely adapted from Murger s episodic novel combines comic elements of the impoverished life of the young protagonists with the tragic aspects such as the death of the young seamstress Mimi Puccini s own life as a young man in Milan served as a source of inspiration for elements of the libretto During his years as a conservatory student and in the years before Manon Lescaut he experienced poverty similar to that of the bohemians in La boheme including chronic shortage of necessities like food clothing and money to pay rent Although Puccini was granted a small monthly stipend by the Congregation of Charity in Rome Congregazione di carita he frequently had to pawn his possessions to cover basic expenses 3 17 Early biographers such as Wakeling Dry and Eugenio Checchi who were Puccini s contemporaries drew express parallels between these incidents and particular events in the opera 3 17 Checchi cited a diary kept by Puccini while he was still a student which recorded an occasion in which as in Act 4 of the opera a single herring served as a dinner for four people 3 17 Puccini himself commented I lived that Boheme when there wasn t yet any thought stirring in my brain of seeking the theme of an opera Quella Boheme io l ho vissuta quando ancora non mi mulinava nel cervello l idea di cercarvi l argomento per un opera in musica 17 Puccini s composition of La boheme was the subject of a public dispute between Puccini and fellow composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo In early 1893 the two composers discovered that they were both engaged in writing operas based on Murger s work Leoncavallo had started his work first and he and his music publisher claimed to have priority on the subject although Murger s work was in the public domain Puccini responded that he started his own work without having any knowledge of Leoncavallo s project and wrote Let him compose I will compose The audience will decide 18 Puccini s opera premiered a year before that of Leoncavallo and has been a perennial audience favorite while Leoncavallo s version quickly faded into obscurity 8 Tosca Edit Puccini s next work after La boheme was Tosca 1900 arguably Puccini s first foray into verismo the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence Puccini had been considering an opera on this theme since he saw the play Tosca by Victorien Sardou in 1889 when he wrote to his publisher Giulio Ricordi begging him to get Sardou s permission for the work to be made into an opera I see in this Tosca the opera I need with no overblown proportions no elaborate spectacle nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music 19 Puccini photographed in 1908 The music of Tosca employs musical signatures for particular characters and emotions which have been compared to Wagnerian leitmotivs and some contemporaries saw Puccini as thereby adopting a new musical style influenced by Richard Wagner Others viewed the work differently Rejecting the allegation that Tosca displayed Wagnerian influences a critic reporting on the Torino premiere of 20 February 1900 wrote I don t think you could find a more Puccinian score than this 20 Automobile crash and near death Edit On 25 February 1903 Puccini was seriously injured in a car crash during a nighttime journey on the road from Lucca to Torre del Lago The car was driven by Puccini s chauffeur and was carrying Puccini his future wife Elvira and their son Antonio It went off the road fell several metres and flipped over Elvira and Antonio were flung from the car and escaped with minor injuries Puccini s chauffeur also thrown from the car suffered a serious fracture of his femur Puccini was pinned under the vehicle with a severe fracture of his right leg and with a portion of the car pressing down on his chest A doctor living near the scene of the crash together with another person who came to investigate saved Puccini from the wreckage 21 The injury did not heal well and Puccini remained under treatment for months During the medical examinations that he underwent it was also found that he was suffering from a form of diabetes 22 The accident and its consequences slowed Puccini s completion of his next work Madama Butterfly Madama Butterfly Edit The original version of Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala on 17 February 1904 with Rosina Storchio in the title role It was initially greeted with great hostility probably largely owing to inadequate rehearsals When Storchio s kimono accidentally lifted during the performance some in the audience started shouting The butterfly is pregnant and There is the little Toscanini The latter comment referred to her well publicised affair with Arturo Toscanini 23 This version was in two acts 24 after its disastrous premiere Puccini withdrew the opera revising it for what was virtually a second premiere at Brescia in May 1904 25 and performances in Buenos Aires London the US and Paris In 1907 Puccini made his final revisions to the opera in a fifth version 26 which has become known as the standard version Today the standard version of the opera is the version most often performed around the world However the original 1904 version is occasionally performed as well and has been recorded 27 Later works Edit Giacomo Puccini with conductor Arturo Toscanini After 1904 Puccini s compositions were less frequent In 1906 Giacosa died and in 1909 there was scandal after Puccini s wife Elvira falsely accused their maid Doria Manfredi of having an affair with Puccini Finally in 1912 the death of Giulio Ricordi Puccini s editor and publisher ended a productive period of his career La fanciulla del West Edit Puccini in 1910 Puccini completed La fanciulla del West based on a play by David Belasco in 1910 This was commissioned by and first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910 with Met stars Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn for whom Puccini created the leading roles of Dick Johnson and Minnie Toscanini then the musical director of the Met conducted 28 This was the first world premiere of an opera at the Met 29 The premiere was a great success 30 However the compositional style employed in the opera with few stand alone arias was criticized at the time 31 Some contemporaries also criticized the opera for failing to achieve an American tone 32 33 However the opera has been acclaimed for its incorporation of advanced harmonic language and rhythmic complexity into the Italian operatic form 34 In addition one aria from the opera Ch ella mi creda has become a staple of compilation albums by operatic tenors It is said that during World War I Italian soldiers sang this aria to maintain their spirits 13 35 The 2008 Italian film Puccini e la fanciulla Puccini and the Girl is based on the period of his life when he was composing the opera La rondine Edit Puccini completed the score of La rondine to a libretto by Giuseppe Adami in 1916 after two years of work and it was premiered at the Grand Theatre de Monte Carlo on 27 March 1917 The opera had been originally commissioned by Vienna s Carltheater however the outbreak of World War I prevented the premiere from being given there Moreover the firm of Ricordi had declined the score of the opera Giulio Ricordi s son Tito was then in charge and he described the opera as bad Lehar 36 It was taken up by their rival Lorenzo Sonzogno who arranged the first performance in neutral Monaco 37 The composer continued to work at revising this the least known of his mature operas until his death La rondine was initially conceived as an operetta but Puccini eliminated spoken dialogue rendering the work closer in form to an opera A modern reviewer described La rondine as a continuous fabric of lilting waltz tunes catchy pop styled melodies and nostalgic love music while characterizing the plot as recycling characters and incidents from works like La traviata and Die Fledermaus 38 Il trittico Il tabarro Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi Edit In 1918 Il trittico premiered in New York This work is composed of three one act operas each concerning the concealment of a death a horrific episode Il tabarro in the style of the Parisian Grand Guignol a sentimental tragedy Suor Angelica and a comedy Gianni Schicchi Turandot Edit Turandot Puccini s final opera was left unfinished at the composer s death in November 1924 and the last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano based on the composer s sketches The libretto for Turandot was based on a play of the same name by Carlo Gozzi 39 The music of the opera is heavily inflected with pentatonic motifs intended to produce an Asiatic flavor to the music Turandot contains a number of memorable stand alone arias among them Nessun dorma Librettists EditThe libretto of Edgar was a significant factor in the failure of that opera Thereafter especially throughout his middle and late career Puccini was extremely selective and at times indecisive in his choice of subject matter for new works 8 Puccini was deeply involved in the process of writing the libretto itself requiring many iterative revisions of his libretti in terms of both structure and text Puccini s relationships with his librettists were at times very difficult His publisher Casa Ricordi was frequently required to mediate disputes and impasses between them 18 Puccini explored many possible subjects that he ultimately rejected only after a significant amount of effort such as the creation of a libretto had been put into them 40 Among the subjects that Puccini seriously considered but abandoned were Cristoforo Sly Anima Allegra based on the play El genio alegre by Serafin and Joaquin Alvarez Quintero Two Little Wooden Shoes I due zoccoletti a short story by Maria Louise Rame a k a Ouida the life of Marie Antoinette Margherita da Cortona and Conchita based on the novel La Femme et le pantin The Woman and the Puppet by Pierre Louys 18 Some of these abandoned subjects were taken up and turned into operas by other composers For example Franco Vittadini made an opera of Anima Allegra Mascagni s opera Lodoletta is derived from Two Little Wooden Shoes and Riccardo Zandonai eventually wrote Conchita 18 Torre del Lago Edit Torre del Lago Italy Villa Puccini From 1891 onwards Puccini spent most of his time when not traveling on business at Torre del Lago a small community about fifteen miles from Lucca situated between the Ligurian Sea and Lake Massaciuccoli just south of Viareggio Torre del Lago was the primary place for Puccini to indulge his love of hunting I love hunting I love cars and for these things in the isolation of Torre del Lago I keep the faith Amo la caccia adoro l automobile e a questo e a quella nelle solitudini di Torre del Lago serbo intera la mia fede 41 By 1900 he had acquired land and built a villa on the lake now known as the Villa Puccini He lived there until 1921 when pollution produced by peat works on the lake forced him to move to Viareggio a few kilometres north After his death a mausoleum was created in the Villa Puccini and the composer is buried there in the chapel along with his wife and son who died later The Villa Museo was owned by his granddaughter Simonetta Puccini until her death and is open to the public An annual Festival Puccini is held at Torre del Lago Puccini on horsebackMarriage and affairs Edit Puccini with his wife Elvira and son Antonio 1900 In the autumn of 1884 Puccini began a relationship with a married woman named Elvira Gemignani nee Bonturi 1860 1930 in Lucca Elvira s husband Narciso Gemignani was an unrepentant womanizer and Elvira s marriage was not a happy one 8 Elvira became pregnant by Puccini and their son Antonio 1886 1946 was born in Monza Elvira left Lucca when the pregnancy began to show and gave birth elsewhere to avoid gossip 8 Elvira Antonio and Elvira s daughter by Narciso Fosca 1880 1968 began to live with Puccini shortly afterwards Narciso was killed by the husband of a woman that Narciso had an affair with dying on 26 February 1903 one day after Puccini s car accident 8 Only then in early 1904 were Puccini and Elvira able to marry and to legitimize Antonio The marriage between Puccini and Elvira was also troubled by infidelity as Puccini had frequent affairs himself including with well known singers such as Maria Jeritza Emmy Destinn Cesira Ferrani and Hariclea Darclee 8 In 1906 while attending the opening of Madama Butterfly in Budapest Puccini fell in love with Blanke Lendvai the sister of Hungarian composer Ervin Lendvai his friend and protege for many years 42 Blanke and Puccini exchanged love letters until 1911 when he started an affair with German aristocrat Baroness Josephine von Stangel which lasted for six years 43 In 1909 Puccini s wife Elvira publicly accused Doria Manfredi a maid working for the Puccini family of having an affair with the composer After the accusation Manfredi committed suicide However an autopsy determined that Manfredi had died a virgin refuting the allegations made against her Elvira Puccini was prosecuted for slander and was sentenced to more than five months in prison although a payment to the Manfredi family by Puccini spared Elvira from having to serve the sentence 44 Some music critics and interpreters of Puccini s work have speculated that the psychological effects of this incident on Puccini interfered with his ability to complete compositions later in his career and also influenced the development of his characters such as Liu from Turandot a slave girl who dies tragically by suicide 45 46 47 In 2007 documents were found in the possession of Nadia Manfredi a descendant of the Manfredi family which indicated that Puccini was actually having an affair with Giulia Manfredi Doria s cousin Upon the discovery of these documents the press began to allege that Puccini had fathered Giulia Manfredi s son Antonio which would make Nadia a granddaughter of Puccini 44 48 Politics EditUnlike Wagner and Verdi Puccini was not active in politics Puccini biographer Mary Jane Phillips Matz wrote Throughout this entire period of World War I and its immediate aftermath Puccini s interest in politics was close to zero as it had been all his life so far as one can judge He seemed almost indifferent to everything from mayoral elections in Viareggio to cabinet appointments in Rome 18 Another biographer speculates that Puccini may have been if he had a political philosophy a monarchist 49 Puccini s indifference to politics caused him problems during World War I Puccini s long standing and close friendship with Toscanini was interrupted for nearly a decade because of an argument in the summer of 1914 in the opening months of the war during which Puccini remarked that Italy could benefit from German organization 18 Puccini was also criticized during the war for his work on La rondine under a 1913 commission contract with an Austrian theater after Italy and Austria Hungary became opponents in the war in 1915 although the contract was ultimately cancelled Puccini did not participate in the public war effort but privately rendered assistance to individuals and families affected by the war 18 In 1919 Puccini was commissioned to write music to an ode by Fausto Salvatori it honoring Italy s victories in World War I The work Inno a Roma Hymn to Rome was to premiere on 21 April 1919 during a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of Rome The premiere was delayed to 1 June 1919 when it was played at the opening of a gymnastics competition 50 Although not written for the fascists Inno a Roma was widely played during Fascist street parades and public ceremonies 51 Puccini had some contact with Benito Mussolini and the Italian Fascist Party in the year preceding his death In 1923 the Fascist Party in Viareggio made Puccini an honorary member and sent him a membership card 18 However evidence that Puccini was actually a member of the Fascist Party is ambiguous 52 The Italian Senate has traditionally included a small number of members appointed in recognition of their cultural contributions to the nation Puccini hoped to attain this honor which had been granted to Verdi and undertook to use his connections to bring about the appointment While honorary senators could vote there is no indication that Puccini sought the appointment for this purpose Puccini also wished to establish a national theater in Viareggio a project which would require government support Puccini met with Mussolini twice in November and December 1923 seeking support for the theater project While the theater project never came to fruition Puccini was named Senator senatore a vita a few months before his death 18 At the time Puccini met with Mussolini Mussolini had been prime minister for approximately a year but his party had not yet taken full control of the Italian Parliament through the violence and irregularities of the 1924 general election Puccini was no longer alive when Mussolini announced the end of representative government and the beginning of a fascist dictatorship in his speech before the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January 1925 53 Death Edit Puccini in 1924 A chain smoker of Toscano cigars and cigarettes Puccini began to complain of chronic sore throats towards the end of 1923 A diagnosis of throat cancer led his doctors to recommend a new and experimental radiation therapy treatment which was being offered in Brussels Puccini and his wife never knew how serious the cancer was as the news was revealed only to his son Puccini died in Brussels on 29 November 1924 aged 65 from complications after the treatment uncontrolled bleeding led to a heart attack the day after surgery News of his death reached Rome during a performance of La boheme The opera was immediately stopped and the orchestra played Chopin s Funeral March for the stunned audience 54 He was buried in Milan in Toscanini s family tomb but that was always intended as a temporary measure In 1926 his son arranged for the transfer of his father s remains to a specially created chapel inside the Puccini villa at Torre del Lago Style and critical reception EditMost broadly Puccini wrote in the style of the late Romantic period of classical music see Romantic music 55 Music historians also refer to Puccini as a component of the giovane scuola young school a cohort of composers who came onto the Italian operatic scene as Verdi s career came to an end such as Mascagni Leoncavallo and others mentioned below 56 Puccini is also frequently referred to as a verismo composer 57 Puccini s career extended from the end of the Romantic period into the modern period He consciously attempted to update his style to keep pace with new trends but did not attempt to fully adopt a modern style One critic Andrew Davis has stated Loyalty toward nineteenth century Italian opera traditions and more generally toward the musical language of his Tuscan heritage is one of the clearest features of Puccini s music 55 Davis also identifies however a stylistic pluralism in Puccini s work including influences from the German symphonic tradition French harmonic and orchestrational traditions and to a lesser extent aspects of Wagnerian chromaticism 55 In addition Puccini frequently sought to introduce music or sounds from outside sources into his operas such as his use of Chinese folk melodies in Turandot All of Puccini s operas have at least one set piece for a lead singer that is separate enough from its surroundings that it can be treated as a distinct aria and most of his works have several of these At the same time Puccini s work continued the trend away from operas constructed from a series of set pieces and instead used a more through composed or integrated construction His works are strongly melodic In orchestration Puccini frequently doubled the vocal line in unison or at octaves in order to emphasize and strengthen the melodic line 55 Verismo is a style of Italian opera that began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni s Cavalleria Rusticana peaked in the early 1900s and lingered into the 1920s 58 The style is distinguished by realistic sometimes sordid or violent depictions of everyday life especially the life of the contemporary lower classes Verismo does not usually employ the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism Cavalleria Rusticana Pagliacci and Andrea Chenier are uniformly considered to be verismo operas Puccini s career as a composer is almost entirely coincident in time with the verismo movement Only his Le Villi and Edgar preceded Cavalleria Rusticana Some view Puccini as essentially a verismo composer 57 while others although acknowledging that he took part in the movement to some degree do not view him as a pure verismo composer 59 In addition critics differ as to the degree to which particular operas by Puccini are or are not properly described as verismo operas Two of Puccini s operas Tosca and Il Tabarro are universally considered to be verismo operas 60 Puccini scholar Mosco Carner places only two of Puccini s operas other than Tosca and Il tabarro within the verismo school Madama Butterfly and La Fanciulla del West 61 Because only three verismo works that were not composed by Puccini continue to appear regularly on stage the aforementioned Cavalleria Rusticana Pagliacci and Andrea Chenier Puccini s contribution has had lasting significance to the genre Both during his lifetime and in posterity Puccini s success outstripped other Italian opera composers of his time and he has been matched in this regard by only a handful of composers in the entire history of opera Between 2004 and 2018 Puccini ranked third behind Verdi and Mozart in the number of performances of his operas worldwide as surveyed by Operabase Three of his operas La boheme Tosca and Madame Butterfly were amongst the 10 most frequently performed operas worldwide 62 Gustav Kobbe the original author of The Complete Opera Book a standard reference work on opera wrote in the 1919 edition Puccini is considered the most important figure in operatic Italy today the successor of Verdi if there is any 63 Other contemporaries shared this view 7 Italian opera composers of the generation with whom Puccini was compared included Pietro Mascagni 1863 1945 Ruggero Leoncavallo 1857 1919 Umberto Giordano 1867 1948 Francesco Cilea 1866 1950 Baron Pierantonio Tasca 1858 1934 Gaetano Coronaro 1852 1908 and Alberto Franchetti 1860 1942 7 56 Only three composers and three works by Italian contemporaries of Puccini appear on the Operabase list of most performed works Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo and Andrea Chenier by Umberto Giordano Kobbe contrasted Puccini s ability to achieve sustained success with the failure of Mascagni and Leoncavallo to produce more than merely one sensationally successful short opera 63 By the time of Puccini s death in 1924 he had earned 4 million from his works 64 Although the popular success of Puccini s work is undeniable and his mastery of the craft of composition has been consistently recognized opinion among critics as to the artistic value of his work has always been divided Grove Music Online described Puccini s strengths as a composer as follows Puccini succeeded in mastering the orchestra as no other Italian had done before him creating new forms by manipulating structures inherited from the great Italian tradition loading them with bold harmonic progressions which had little or nothing to do with what was happening then in Italy though they were in step with the work of French Austrian and German colleagues 65 In his work on Puccini Julian Budden describes Puccini as a gifted and original composer noting the innovation hidden in the popularity of works such as Che gelida manina He describes the aria in musical terms the signature embedded in the harmony for example and points out that its structure was rather unheard of at the time having three distinct musical paragraphs that nonetheless form a complete and coherent whole 66 This gumption in musical experimentation was the essence of Puccini s style as evidenced in his diverse settings and use of the motif to express ideas beyond those in the story and text 67 Puccini has however consistently been the target of condescension by some music critics who find his music insufficiently sophisticated or difficult 68 Some have explicitly condemned his efforts to please his audience such as this contemporary Italian critic He willingly stops himself at minor genius stroking the taste of the public obstinately shunning too daring innovation A little heroism but not taken to great heights a little bit of veristic comedy but brief a lot of sentiment and romantic idyll this is the recipe in which he finds happiness E gli si arresta volentieri alla piccola genialita accarezzando il gusto del pubblico rifuggendo ostinato dalle troppo ardite innovazioni Un po di eroismo ma non spinto a grandi altezze un po di commedia verista ma breve molto idillio sentimentale e romantico ecco la ricetta in cui egli compiace 69 Budden attempted to explain the paradox of Puccini s immense popular success and technical mastery on the one hand and the relative disregard in which his work has been held by academics No composer communicates more directly with an audience than Puccini Indeed for many years he has remained a victim of his own popularity hence the resistance to his music in academic circles Be it remembered however that Verdi s melodies were once dismissed as barrel organ fodder The truth is that music that appeals immediately to a public becomes subject to bad imitation which can cast a murky shadow over the original So long as counterfeit Puccinian melody dominated the world of sentimental operetta many found it difficult to come to terms with the genuine article Now that the current coin of light music has changed the composer admired by Schoenberg Ravel and Stravinsky can be seen to emerge in his full stature 14 Puccini studies EditFounded in 1996 in Lucca the Centro di studi Giacomo Puccini embraces a wide range of approaches to the study of Puccini s work In the US the American Center for Puccini Studies specializes in the presentation of unusual performing editions of composer s works and introduces neglected or unknown Puccini pieces It was founded in 2004 by the singer and director Harry Dunstan Works EditMain article List of compositions by Giacomo Puccini Donna non vidi mai source source From Manon Lescaut act 1 Enrico Caruso 1913 O soave fanciulla source source From La boheme act 1 Caruso and Nellie Melba 1906 O mio babbino caro source source From Gianni Schicchi Frances Alda 1919 Problems playing these files See media help Puccini wrote orchestral pieces sacred music chamber music solo music for piano and organ and songs for voice and piano most notably his 1880 mass Messa di gloria his Preludio Sinfonico of 1882 and his 1890 string quartet movement Crisantemi However he is primarily known for his operas Le Villi libretto by Ferdinando Fontana in one act premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme 31 May 1884 Edgar libretto by Ferdinando Fontana in four acts premiered at La Scala 21 April 1889 Manon Lescaut libretto by Luigi Illica Marco Praga and Domenico Oliva in four acts premiered at the Teatro Regio 1 February 1893 La boheme libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa in four acts premiered at the Teatro Regio 1 February 1896 Tosca libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa in three acts premiered at the Teatro Costanzi 14 January 1900 Madama Butterfly libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa in two acts premiered at La Scala 17 February 1904 La fanciulla del West libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini in three acts premiered at the Metropolitan Opera 10 December 1910 La rondine libretto by Giuseppe Adami in three acts premiered at the Opera de Monte Carlo 27 March 1917 Il trittico premiered at the Metropolitan Opera 14 December 1918 Il tabarro libretto by Giuseppe Adami Suor Angelica libretto by Giovacchino Forzano Gianni Schicchi libretto by Giovacchino Forzano Turandot libretto by Renato Simoni and Giuseppe Adami in three acts incomplete at the time of Puccini s death completed by Franco Alfano premiered at La Scala 25 April 1926 Notes Edit Full name Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini UK ˈ dʒ ae k e m oʊ p ʊ ˈ tʃ iː n i JAK e moh puu CHEE nee US ˈ dʒ ɑː k e m oʊ p uː ˈ tʃ iː n i JAH ke moh poo CHEE nee Italian ˈdʒaːkomo putˈtʃiːni Although Puccini himself correctly titled the work a Messa referring to a setting of the Ordinary of the Catholic Mass today the work is popularly known as his Messa di Gloria a name that technically refers to a setting of only the first two prayers of the Ordinary the Kyrie and the Gloria while omitting the Credo the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei References Edit Giacomo Puccini Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 22 December 2022 Ravenni amp Girardi n d Introduction a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Dry 1905 p page needed a b c Cattedrale di S Martino Centro di Studi Giacomo Puccini Retrieved 3 November 2012 a b c Gervasoni 1812 pp 240 241 Streatfeild 1895 p 269 a b c d Streatfeild R A 1897 The Opera London John C Nimmo a b c d e f g h i j k l m Girardi Michele 2000 Puccini His International Art Chicago University of Chicago Press Carner 1959 p 49 Carner 1959 p page needed a b c Arte e Scienze La Stampa 2 February 1893 Phillips Matz 2002 p 64 a b Sadie amp Macy 2006 p page needed a b Budden 2002 p 107 Budden 2002 p 494 Casaglia Gherardo 2005 La boheme L Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia in Italian a b c d Checchi 1897 pp 470 81 a b c d e f g h i Phillips Matz 2002 p page needed Phillips Matz 2002 pp 106 107 La prima della Tosca del M Puccini al Teatro Regio La Stampa in Italian 21 February 1900 Una disgrazia automobilistica al maestro Puccini La Stampa 27 February 1903 Phillips Matz 2002 p 123 Puccini Madama Butterfly www columbia edu Retrieved 13 November 2015 Version 1 Milan 1904 403 pp G Ricordi amp C Milano Roma Napoli Palermo Parigi Londra Lipsia New York Boosey amp Co Buenos Aires Breyer Hermanos This version was withdrawn after the opening night See Version History Phillips Matz 2002 p 146 Version 5 the Standard Version 266 pp 1907 G Ricordi amp C New York Milan Rome Naples Palermo London Paris Leipsig Buenos Ayres S Paulo See Version History Davis Peter 20 January 1997 Selling Old Scores New York Vol 30 no 2 Smith 2004 p 544 Randall amp Davis 2005 p 42 New York Acclaims Puccini s New Opera Theatre Magazine Vol 13 no 119 January 1911 The Stage Munsey s Magazine Vol 44 1911 p 6 Eaton 1911 Plays and Players Hampton s Magazine 26 3 364 March 1911 In Puccini s Girl of the Golden West we get a highly amusing operatic picture of what did not take place in California in 49 Siff 2012 Osborne 1982 p 195 Phillips Matz 2002 p 245 Gavin Plumley Puccini s Bittersweet Operetta San Francisco Opera program Nov Dec 2007 pp 30 31 Davis Peter G 3 September 1984 Puccini mit Schlag New York Vol 17 no 35 Ashbrook amp Powers 1991 p 43 Phillips Matz 2002 passim Villante Luigi Alberto 11 February 1905 I progetti di Giacomo Puccini La Stampa in Italian Vol 39 no 42 Phillips Matz 2002 p 160 Phillips Matz 2002 p 223 a b Mourby 2008 Interview San Francisco Opera s Music Director Designate Nicola Luisotti on Covent Garden s Turandot and his plans for his new company Retrieved 25 August 2012 Two films by acclaimed and controversial filmmaker Tony Palmer Naxos 26 June 2008 Archived from the original on 7 January 2009 Retrieved 25 August 2012 Weaver amp Puccini 1994 p 375 Espinoza 2007 Fairtile Linda Beard 1999 Giacomo Puccini A Guide to Research Psychology Press ISBN 0 8153 2033 7 Weaver amp Puccini 1994 p 301 Puccini biography Archived 2 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine prepared by San Francisco Opera Company Wilson 2007 p 192 Pugliese Stanislao G 2004 Fascism Anti Fascism and the Resistance in Italy 1919 To the Present Lanham Maryland Rowman amp Littlefield ISBN 0 7425 3122 8 Mussolini s speech before the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January 1925 is universally recognized as the beginning of the full fascist dictatorship Previously Mussolini had tried to maintain a facade of parliamentary representative government The Death of Giacomo Puccini The British Newspaper Archive 29 November 2012 Retrieved 16 January 2015 a b c d Davis Andrew C 2010 Il Trittico Turandot and Puccini s Late Style Bloomington Indiana Indiana University Press pp 8ff ISBN 978 0 253 35514 0 a b Mallach Alan 2007 The Autumn of Italian Opera From Verismo to Modernism 1890 1915 Lebanon New Hampshire Northeastern University Press p 79 ISBN 978 1 55553 683 1 a b Montgomery 2006 p page needed Verismo in Stanley Sadie ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians London Macmillan New York Grove 1980 vol 19 p 670 ISBN 1 56159 174 2 Berger 2005 p 7 Fisher 2003 p page needed Carner Mosco 1985 Giacomo Puccini Tosca reprinted ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press p 6 ISBN 0 521 22824 7 Statistics Statistics by work and by composer select From 2004 and To 2018 Operabase Retrieved 18 November 2012 a b Kobbe Gustav 1919 The Complete Opera Book The stories of the operas together with 400 of the leading airs and motives in musical notation New York and London G P Putnam s Sons p 638 The Puccini Centenary Life Vol 45 no 23 8 December 1958 p 127 Ravenni amp Girardi n d 11 Assessment Budden 2002 pp 163 164 Voicu Mirela 2017 Dramaturgical construction of the character Mimi from opera Boema de Giacomo Puccini Invăţămant Cercetare Creaţie Editura Muzicală III 1 175 179 via Central and Eastern European Online Library subscription required need quotation to verify Groos Arthur Parker Roger 1986 Giacomo Puccini La Boheme reprinted ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press p 127 ISBN 0 521 26489 8 Puccini Franchetti Leoncavallo La Stampa 8 August 1903 Sources Edit Ashbrook William Powers Harold 1991 Puccini s Turandot The End of the Great Tradition Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 02712 8 Berger William 2005 Puccini Without Excuses A Refreshing Reassessment of the World s Most Popular Composer Random House Digital ISBN 1 4000 7778 8 Budden Julian 2002 Puccini His Life and Works Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 816468 5 Carner Mosco 1959 Puccini A Critical Biography Alfred Knopf Checchi Eugenio December 1897 Francisco Protonotari ed Nuova Antologia in Italian Direzione della Nuova Antologia pp 470 481 Dry Wakeling 1905 Giacomo Puccini London amp New York John Lane Eaton W P March 1911 Where We Stand in Opera The American Magazine 71 5 Espinoza Javier 29 September 2007 Revealed the identity of Puccini s secret lover The Guardian London Retrieved 23 August 2012 Fisher Burton D 2003 Puccini s Il Trittico Miami Opera Journeys Publishing ISBN 0 9771455 6 5 Gervasoni Carlo 1812 Nuova teoria di musica ricavata dall odierna pratica New theory of music distilled from modern day practice Milan Blanchon Phillips Matz Mary Jane 2002 Puccini A Biography Boston Northeastern University Press ISBN 1 55553 530 5 Montgomery Alan 2006 Opera Coaching Professional Techniques and Considerations New York Routledge Taylor amp Francis Group ISBN 978 0 415 97601 5 Mourby Adrian 6 July 2008 Scandalissimo Puccini s sex life exposed The Independent Retrieved 23 August 2012 Osborne Charles 1982 The Complete Operas of Puccini A Critical Guide Da Capo Press Randall Annie J Davis Rosalind G 2005 Puccini and the Girl History and Reception of the Girl of the Golden West Chicago University of Chicago Press ISBN 0 226 70389 4 Ravenni Gabriella Biagi Girardi Michele n d Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini ii Grove Music Online Siff Ira July 2012 Puccini La Fanciulla del West Opera News 77 1 Sadie Stanley Macy Laura eds 2006 The Grove Book of Operas 2nd ed Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 530907 2 Sadie Stanley ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians London Macmillan New York Grove 1980 ISBN 1 56159 174 2 p 203 Smith Peter Fox 2004 A Passion for Opera Trafalgar Square Books ISBN 1 57076 280 5 Streatfeild Richard Alexander 1895 Masters of Italian music C Scribner s Sons Weaver William Puccini Simonetta eds 1994 The Puccini Companion W W Norton ISBN 978 0 393 02930 7 Wilson Alexandra 2007 The Puccini Problem Opera Nationalism and Modernity Cambridge University Press Further reading EditCagnoni Romano Ravenni Gabriella Biagi Giacomo Puccini luoghi e suggestioni 2008 Maria Pacini Fazzi ed photographs by Romano Cagnoni ISBN 978 88 7246 918 7 Kendell Colin 2012 The Complete Puccini The Story of the World s Most Popular Operatic Composer Stroud Gloucestershire Amberley Publishing 2012 ISBN 978 1 4456 0445 9 Keolker James Last Acts The Operas of Puccini and His Italian Contemporaries from Alfano to Zandonai 2000 ISBN 978 0 9676604 3 1External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Giacomo Puccini Wikiquote has quotations related to Giacomo Puccini Free scores by Giacomo Puccini at the International Music Score Library Project IMSLP Free scores by Giacomo Puccini in the Choral Public Domain Library ChoralWiki Centro Studi di Giacomo Puccini American Center for Puccini Studies Festival Puccini e la sua Lucca Giacomo Puccini at IMDb Works by or about Giacomo Puccini at Internet Archive Portals Classical music Opera Biography Italy Music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Giacomo Puccini amp oldid 1129959430, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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