Giacomo (Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria) Puccini - Early life, Puccini at Torre del Lago, The final years, Politics, Style, Music, Media
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (December 22, 1858 – November 29, 1924) was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire. One of the few operatic composers to successfully use both German and Italian techniques of opera, Puccini is regarded as the successor of Giuseppe Verdi.
Early life
Puccini was born in Lucca in Tuscany, Italy into a family with five generations of musical history behind them.
In 1880, with the help of a relative and a grant, Puccini enrolled in the Milan Conservatory to study composition with Amilcare Ponchielli and Antonio Bazzini. Although Puccini himself correctly titled the work a Messa, referring to a setting of the full 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 Mass, the Kyrie and the Gloria, while omitting the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei. Puccini's work is, in fact, a Messa.
The work anticipates Puccini's career as an operatic composer by offering glimpses of the dramatic power that he would soon unleash on the stage;
While studying at the Conservatory, Puccini obtained a libretto from Ferdinando Fontano and entered a competition for a one-act opera in 1882. Puccini and Fontana were to become life-long friends.
Puccini at Torre del Lago
From 1891 onwards, Puccini spent more of his time at Torre del Lago, a small community about fifteen miles from Lucca situated between the Tyrrhenian Sea and Lake Massaciuccoli, just south of Viareggio. By 1900 he had acquired land and built a villa on the lake, now known as the "Villa Museo Puccini". 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 Puccini" is presently owned by his granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini, and is open to the public.
Operas written at Torre del Lago
Manon Lescaut (1893), his third opera, was his first great success. It launched his remarkable relationship with the librettests Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, who collaborated with him on his next three operas, which became his three most famous and most performed operas. Tosca (1900) was arguably Puccini's first foray into verismo, the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence. 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.
However, Puccini completed La fanciulla del West in 1910, an opera which he later thought of as his most powerful, and finished the score of La rondine in 1917, a piece he reworked from an operetta he had attempted to compose, only to find that his style and talent were incompatible with the genre.
The final years
A habitual cigarette chain smoker, Puccini began to complain of chronic sore throats towards the end of 1923. Puccini and his wife never knew how serious the cancer was, as the news was only revealed to his son.
Puccini died there on November 29, 1924 from complications from the treatment;
Turandot, his final opera, was left unfinished and the last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano based on the composer's sketches. The performance reached the point where Puccini had completed the score, at which time Toscanani stopped the orchestra.
Politics
Unlike Wagner and Verdi, Puccini did not appear to be active in the politics of his day. However, Mussolini, Fascist dictator of Italy at the time, claimed that Puccini applied for admission to the National Fascist Party. There appear to be no records or proof of any application given to the party by Puccini. In addition, it can be noted that had Puccini done so, his close friend, Arturo Toscanini, (an extreme anti-fascist), would have sufficiently influenced Puccini, and would not have been as friendly to the composer as he was.
Style
Puccini's style has been one long avoided by musicologists; Despite the place Puccini clearly occupies in the popular tradition of Verdi, his style of orchestration also shows the strong influence of Wagner, matching specific orchestral configurations and timbres to different dramatic moments.
The structures of Puccini's works are also noteworthy. Like Wagner, Puccini used leitmotifs to connote characters (or combinations of characters). Unlike Wagner, though, Puccini's motifs are static: where Wagner's motifs develop into more complicated figures as the characters develop, Puccini's remain more or less identical throughout the opera (in this respect anticipating the themes of modern musical theatre).
Another distinctive quality in Puccini's works is the use of the voice in the style of speech: characters sing short phrases one after another, as if they were talking to each other. Puccini is celebrated, on the other hand, for his melodic gift, and many of his melodies are both memorable and enduringly popular. Today, it is rare not to find at least one Puccini aria included in an operatic singer's CD album or recital.
Music
Although Puccini is mainly known for his operas, he also wrote some orchestral pieces, sacred music, chamber music and songs for voice and piano.
Puccini's operas
Le Villi, 1884.Puccini's works and versions
(with dates of premieres and locations)
Messa (wrongly known as Messa di Gloria, Mass, Lucca, 1880) Preludio Sinfonico in A major (Milan, 1882) Capriccio Sinfonico (Milan, 1883) Le Villi (31-May-1884, Teatro dal Verme, Milan) Le Villi [rev] (26-Dec-1884, Teatro Regio di Torino) Edgar (21-Apr-1889, Teatro alla Scala, Milan - 4 acts) Crisantemi (String Quartet, 1890, "Alla memoria di Amadeo di Savoia Duca d'Aosta") Edgar [rev ] (5-Sep-1891, Teatro del Giglio, Lucca - 4 acts) Minuetto n.1 (String Quartet, published about 1892, "A.S.A.R. Augusto Michelangeli") Minuetto n.3 (String Quartet, published about 1892, "All'amico maestro Carlo Carignani") Edgar [rev 2] (28-Feb-1892, Teatro Comunale, Ferrara - 3 acts) Manon Lescaut (1-Feb-1893, Teatro Regio di Torino) La bohème (1-Feb-1896, Teatro Regio, Turin) Tosca (14-Jan-1900, Teatro Costanzi, Rome) Madama Butterfly (17-Feb-1904, Teatro alla Scala, Milan) Madama Butterfly [rev] (28-May-1904, Teatro Grande, Brescia) Edgar [rev 3] (8-Jun-1905, Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires - 3 acts) Madama Butterfly [rev 2] (10-July-1905, Royal Opera House,Covent Garden, London) Madama Butterfly [rev 3] (28-Dec-1905, Opéra Comique, Paris) La fanciulla del West (10-Dec-1910, Metropolitan Opera, New York) La rondine (27-Mar-1917, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Monte Carlo) Il trittico (14-Dec-1918, Metropolitan Opera, New York): Il tabarro Suor Angelica Gianni Schicchi Turandot (25-Apr-1926, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
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