Puccini
Name: Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini
Achievements: One of the greatest exponents of operatic realism, who virtually brought the history of Italian opera to an end.
Born: December 22, 1858; Lucca, Tuscany, Italy
Died: November 29, 1924; Brussels, Belgium (Aged 65)
Field & Discipline: Music; Opera; Composer
Language: Italian
Father: Michele Puccini
Mother: Albina Magi
Siblings: Ignia; Odilia; Tomaide (Dide); Nitteti; Ramelde; Michele; Macrina (died as an infant); Temi (died as an infant)
Spouse: Elvira Bonturi
Children: Antonio; Fosca (step-child); Renato (step-child)
Education: Instituto Musicale Pacini; Milan Conservatoire
Major Work:
“Turandot” (1926)
Life & Times:
Puccini began composing in earnest (chiefly organ music for church services) between the ages of sixteen and seventeen. His first contact with opera was through his teacher Angeloni, who introduced him to the scores of Verdi's “Rigoletto,” “La Traviata,” and “Il Trovatore.” In 1876, at the age seventeen, he attended a performance of “Aida” at Pisa. This convinced him that his true vocation was opera. He settled down to intensive study to acquire the theoretical knowledge needed for the entrance examination to the Conservatoire.
He started to compose more ambitious works including a “Prelude Sinfonico” in 1876, a Cantata and a “Motet” and “Credo” in 1878, the performance of these two latter pieces being his first public success. Two years later he incorporated these two pieces in his much-acclaimed “Mass in A-flat,” written as his final exercise at the Instituto Musicale Pacini in 1880.
Puccini entered the Milan Conservatoire in the autumn of 1880 and remained there for three years. On July 16th, 1883, he received his diploma and presented, as his graduation composition, “Capriccio Sinfonico.”
In the same year, he (with librettist Ferdinando Fontana) entered “Le Villi” in a competition for one-act operas. The judges did not think it worthy of consideration but, soon after, at a party in the house of the wealthy Milan music-lover Marco Sala, Puccini played and sang it at the piano. The music publisher [a pal of] Ricordi* and the composer-librettist Arrigo Boito were present and it was decided to subsidize production of the opera at the Teatro del Verme.
Performed there on 31st May 1884, “Le Villi” was an immense success. Ricordi immediately acquired the copyright and commissioned another opera. The result, “Edgar,” based on [adapted work of] de Musset's* involved verse-drama “La Coupe et les Levres,” again with Fontana as librettist, was the beginning of Puccini's lifelong association with Ricordi, who took him as his protégé and became a staunch supporter and friend.
In 1889, Puccini began work on his next opera “Manon Lescaut,” based (like the internationally successful “Manon” by the French composer Jules Massenet) on the celebrated 18th-century novel by the [adapted work of] Prevost*. This was the first opera for which Puccini both chose the subject and collaborated on the libretto.
“Manon Lescaut” was finally completed in late 1892 and first performed in Turin on 1st February 1893. It was an immediate success, making Puccini's name known outside Italy. Its London production in 1894 prompted the writer [good review by] Shaw*, then a music critic on “The World,” to conclude his long critique with the prophetic words “Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals.”
His next opera, “La Boheme,” was the first of the three operas in which his collaborators were Illica and Giacosa, an association to which Ricordi jokingly referred as the “Holy Trinity.”
Illica elaborated the scenario and invented picturesque incidents, Giacosa saw to the poetry, with Puccini taking a highly active part in the shaping of the libretto. The new opera, based on Henry Murger's autobiographical “Scenes de la Vie de Boheme,” was first produced at Turin on 1st February 1896, under the world-famous conductor [produced by] Toscanini*.
It did not achieve immediate success, as the critics had come expecting to hear an opera in the romantically tragic style of “Manon Lescaut,” whereas “La Boheme,” in its mixture of light hearted and sentimental scenes and largely conversational style, was reminiscent of operetta.
Power of characterisation also marked his next opera, “Tosca,” based on a play by Victorien Sardou, premiered in Rome in January 1900.
In the summer of 1900, Puccini travelled to London where he saw David Belasco's one-act play, “Madam Butterfly,” on which he based his two-act opera, which premiered at La Scala on 17th February 1904.
Six years elapsed before his next opera, “La Fanciulla del West” in 1910, based on another Belasco play “The Girl of the Golden West.” The fact that “La Fanciulla del West” was an “American” opera prompted Gatti-Casazza, then director of the Metropolitan in New York, to book the world premiere for his theatre on 10th December 1910, with Toscanini conducting, [music sung by] Caruso* as Johnson.
In his early sixties Puccini had arrived at an important turning point in his style. With “Turandot” he felt that he was moving on to a higher plane. No other opera cost him so much effort and toil. In the midst of his work on “Turandot” (based on [adapted work of] Gozzi’s writing) in December 1921, he decided to move from Torre del Lago to settle in Viareggio.
Towards the end of 1923, he began to complain of pains in his throat and, in the autumn of 1924, three specialists diagnosed cancer. He died on 29th November, with the incomplete score of Turandot in his hands. The whole of Italy went into mourning and Mussolini* gave the funeral oration.
Assessment: To this day, Pucini’s work remains supreme.
Oneliner: Giacomo Puccini, great opera composer
Bibliography:
- Carner, Mosco, Puccini: A Critical Biography, London: Duckworth, 1992.