Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy, on December 22, 1858, to a family which for several generations had produced professional musicians. As a boy, Giacomo attended the Istituto Musicale in his native city, played the organ in the local church, and wrote two choral compositions. A subsidy from Queen Margherita enabled him to continue his music study at the Milan Conservatory with Bazzini and Ponchielli. The latter encouraged Puccini to write for the stage. Puccini’s first dramatic work was a one-act opera, Le Villi, given successfully in Milan in 1884, and soon thereafter performed at La Scala. On a commission from the publisher, Ricordi, Puccini wrote a second opera that was a failure. But the third, Manon Lescaut—introduced in Turin in 1893—was a triumph and permanently established Puccini’s fame. He now moved rapidly to a position of first importance in Italian opera with three successive master-works: La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). Puccini paid his first visit to the United States in 1907 to supervise the American première of the last-named opera; he returned in 1910 to attend the world première of The Girl from the Golden West which had been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Puccini’s subsequent operas were: La Rondine (1917), Il Trittico, a trilogy of three one-act operas (1918), and Turandot (1924), the last of which was left unfinished but was completed by Franco Alfano. Operated on for cancer of the throat, in Brussels, Puccini died of a heart attack in that city on November 29, 1924.

Though Puccini was an exponent of “Verismo,” a movement in Italian opera which emphasized everyday subjects treated realistically, he poured into his operas such a wealth of sentiment, tenderness, sweetness of lyricism, and elegance of style that their emotional appeal is universal, and he has become the best loved opera composer of the 20th century. Selections from his three most popular operas are basic to the repertory of any semi-classical or “pop” orchestra.

La Bohème was based on Murger’s famous novel, Scènes de la vie de Bohème adapted into an opera libretto by Giacosa and Illica. When first introduced (Turin, February 1, 1896) the opera encountered an apathetic audience and hostile critics. It had no big scenes, no telling climaxes, and most of its effects were too subtle emotionally to have an instantaneous appeal. But the third performance—in Palermo in 1896—received an ovation. From that time on it never failed to move opera audiences with its deeply moving pathos and its vivid depiction of the daily problems and conflicts of a group of Bohemians in mid 19th-century Paris. The central theme is the love affair of the poet, Rodolfo, and a seamstress, Mimi. This love was filled with storm and stress, and ended tragically with Mimi’s death of consumption in Rodolfo’s attic. The following are some of the episodes heard most often in potpourris or fantasies of this opera: Rodolfo’s celebrated narrative in the first act, “Che gelida manina,” in which he tells Mimi about his life as a poet; Mimi’s aria that follows this narrative immediately, “Mi chiamano Mimi,” where she tells Rodolfo of her poignant need for flowers and the warmth of springtime; the first act love duet of Mimi and Rodolfo, “O soave fanciulla”; Musetta’s coquettish second-act waltz, “Quando m’en vo’ soletta,” sung outside Café Momus in the Latin Quarter on Christmas Eve, informing her admirers (specifically Marcello the painter), how men are always attracted to her; Rodolfo’s poignant recollection of his one time happiness with Mimi, “O, Mimi, tu più” in the fourth act; and Mimi’s death music that ends the opera.

Madama Butterfly—libretto by Illica and Giacosa based on David Belasco’s play of the same name, which in turn came from John Luther’s short story—was first performed in Milan on February 17, 1904 when it was a fiasco. There was such pandemonium during that performance that Puccini had to rush on the stage and entreat the audience to be quiet so that the opera might continue. Undoubtedly, some of Puccini’s enemies had a hand in instigating this scandal, but the opera itself was not one able to win immediate favor. The exotic setting of Japan, the unorthodox love affair involving an American sailor and a geisha girl ending in tragedy for the girl, and the provocatively different kind of music (sometimes Oriental, sometimes modern) written to conform to the setting and the characters—all this was not calculated to appeal to Italian opera lovers. But three months after the première the opera was repeated (with some vital revisions by the composer). This time neither the play nor the music proved shocking, and the audience fell under the spell of enchantment which that sensitive opera cast all about it. From then on, the opera has been a favorite around the world.

The most celebrated single excerpt from the opera is unquestionably Madame Butterfly’s poignant aria, her expression of belief that her American lover, so long absent from Japan with his fleet, would some day return to her: “Un bel di.” Other popular episodes include the passionate love music of Madame Butterfly and the American lieutenant with which the first act ends, “Viene la sera”; the flower duet of the second act between Madame Butterfly and her servant in which the heroine excitedly decorates her home with cherry blossoms upon learning that her lover is back with his fleet (“Scuoti quella fronda di ciliegio”); the American lieutenant’s tender farewell to Madame Butterfly and the scene of their love idyl from the third act (“Addio fiorito asil”); and Madame Butterfly’s tender farewell to her daughter before committing suicide (“Tu, tu piccolo iddio”).

Tosca—based on the famous French drama of the same name by Sardou, the libretto by Giacosa and Illica—was introduced in Rome on January 14, 1900. It was a blood and thunder drama set in Rome at the turn of the 19th century; the dramatic episodes involved murder, horror, suicide, sadism. The heroine, Floria Tosca, is an opera singer in love with a painter, Mario Cavaradossi; she, in turn, is being pursued by Scarpia, the chief of police. To save her lover’s life, she stands ready to give herself to Scarpia. The latter, nonetheless, is responsible for Cavaradossi’s execution. Scarpia is murdered by Tosca, who then commits suicide.

Two tenor arias by Cavaradossi are lyrical highlights of this opera. The first is “Recondita armonia,” in the first act, in which the painter rhapsodizes over the beauty of his beloved Tosca; the second, “E lucevan le stelle,” comes in the last act as Cavaradossi prepares himself for his death by bidding farewell to his memory of Tosca. The third important aria from this opera is that of Tosca, “Vissi d’arte,” a monologue in which she reflects on how cruel life had been to one who has devoted herself always to art, prayer, and love. In addition to these three arias, the opera score also boasts some wonderful love music, that of Cavaradossi and Tosca (“Non la sospiri la nostra casetta”) and the first act stately church music (“Te Deum”).