Giacomo Puccini

1858-1924

Puccini around 1907. This is the portrait of the successful composer who wrote Manon Lescaut, Boheme, Tosca and Madame Butterfly.

Born in the Italian town of Lucca into a family with a strong musical tradition, Puccini was encouraged to develop an interest in music from a very early age. His father started him playing the organ, reportedly by placing shiny coins on the keyboard, which tempted the young boy to grasp them and thus push the keys down. At school he showed little promise or dedication, preferring the company of friends and indulging a taste for practical jokes that were often both complicated and theatrical.

After moving to the local music conservatoire, the Pacini Institute, Puccini's academic record began to improve, and by the age of 16 he was showing an increasing interest in composing and improvising at the organ. In 1876 he walked for seven hours to the town of Pisa in order to attend a performance of Verdi's Aida, despite not possessing the price of a ticket. The opera awoke in Puccini a sense of the power of theatrical music, and with the help of a scholarship endowed by none other than the queen of Italy, he was able to enroll at the Milan Conservatoire in 1880, at that time the country's biggest and most prestigious music college.

Puccini with wife Elvira in 1905. Puccini's first opera, Le villi, was produced in 1884, but it was not until Manon Lescaut in 1893 that he had a major success. This work set the tone for his celebrated later works by concentrating on the psychology of its female heroine. It was followed in 1896 by one of Puccini's best-loved works, La Boheme (1896), produced in Turin. This tale of the exploits of aspiring artists in the bohemian world of mid-nineteenth century Paris reflects Puccini's experiences in Milan, and subtly marries sentiment with comedy and tragedy. These qualities, along with its masterly characterization and what Debussy called the 'sheer verve of the music', have guaranteed its place over the years as one of the most popular of operas.

The string of successes continued with his next two operas, Tosca (1900) and Madame Butterfly (1904). Tosca was first performed in Rome in an atmosphere of high tension. The work's anti-authoritarian stance and disrespectful portrait of the clergy fuelled rumours that a bomb was to he thrown. The premiere passed peace- fully, however, and Tosca achieved great success with the public who enjoyed the melodramatic, even sadistic plot, and the composer's unerring sense of timing. In Butterfly, which rivals La Boheme and Tosca in popularity, Puccini achieved his most successful psychological characterization. The part of the heroine - the Japanese geisha who kills herself for love of the callous American Lieutenant Pinkerton - requires exceptional vocal All the maestros together: Mascagni, Puccini, Leoncavallo and Verdi (can you see them?)

All the maestros together: Mascagni, Puccini, Leoncavallo and Verdi (can you see them?)

and acting skill from the soprano singing the title role. Puccini's next opera was Lafanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West), first produced in New York in 1910. A raw, rip-roaring drama set in the American Wild West, it was a triumphant success under the Poster advertising Tosca, 1900. Tosca was critizied for its violent undercurrents, but the public loved it.

Poster advertising Tosca, 1900. Tosca was critizied for its violent undercurrents, but the public loved it.

guidance of conductor Arturo Toscanini. Lafanciulla was followed by La rondine (The Swallow) and a trio of varied one-act operas - 11 tabarro (The Over- coat), Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica) and Cianni Schicchi, known collectively as Il trittico - before the composer started work on his final work, Turandot. Puccini died of cancer before he was able to complete this work, the gruesome story of the wooing of Turandot, Princess of Peking, by an unknown prince who wins her through his courage and persistence. It is performed in a version completed by Franco Alfano. In Turandot, as in all the composer's operas, drama laden with erotic passion, tenderness, pathos and despair is combined with music of breathtaking melodic invention. The mixture has ensured that the works of Puccini, the true successor to Verdi, continue to occupy a place at the center of the operatic repertoire.