Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (December 22, 1858 November 29, 1924) is regarded as one of the great operatic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century. Although he wrote only twelve operas, Puccini's works dominate the operatic stage, particularly in the United States, where, according to Opera America, Madama Butterfly and La Boheme are the two most frequently performed operas respectively, with Tosca being eighth and Turandot being twelfth on the same list. Known for his melodic ability, orchestrational depth, and dramatism, in Italian opera, Puccini was the only true successor to Giuseppe Verdi.
Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy into a family with a long history of music. After the death of his father when he was only five years old, he was sent to study with his uncle Fortunato Magi, who considered him to be a poor and undisciplined student. Later, he took the position of church organist and choir master, but it was not until he saw a performance of Verdi's Aida that he became inspired to be an opera composer. He and a friend walked an entire 13 miles to see the performance in Pisa. In 1880, Puccini travelled to the Conservatory of Music in Milan to begin his career by studying composition with Amilcare Ponchielli.
In 1880, the Messa composed at the age of 21, marked the end of Puccini's apprenticeship as a composer and the culmination of his family's long association with church music in his native Lucca. (Note: This name normally applies only to a "Gloria" mass, setting the opening two prayers of the Catholic Mass, the Kyrie and the Gloria. However, the Messa is a setting of the full Catholic Mass.) The work offers fascinating glimpses of the dramatic power that Puccini was soon to unleash on Milan's stages; the powerful arias for tenor and bass soloists are certainly more operatic in feel than is usually encountered in church music. The orchestration and the overall feeling of drama conveyed by his music establish a dialogue with Verdi's Requiem and perhaps already constitute a prediction of the future operatic career Puccini would embrace for life.
From 1880 to 1883 he studied at the Milan Conservatory under Amilcare Ponchielli and Antonio Bazzini. In 1882, Puccini entered a competition for a one-act opera. Although he did not win, Le Villi was later staged in 1884 at the Teatro dal Verme; it also caught the attention of Giulio Ricordi, head of G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers, who commissioned a second opera, Edgar (1889).
From 1891 on, Puccini passed more and more of his time at Torre del Lago, in the Tuscan countryside. In this place on the border of the Massaciuccoli lake, where he passed lots of time hunting, he found refuge from the crowded city. Later he built a villa and moved there definitively in 1900. It was to remain his home and workplace until the very last years of his life. He is buried in the villa's chapel.
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:
La boheme (1896) is considered one of his best works as well as one of the most romantic operas ever composed. It is arguably today's most popular opera.
Tosca (1900) was arguably Puccini's first foray into musical verismo, the realistic depiction of life including, in this case, violence. The opera is generally considered of capital importance in the history of opera because it contains many high points.
Madama Butterfly (1904) was greeted with great hostility (mostly orchestrated by his rivals) but, after some reworking, became another of his most successful operas.
Composition was slow after this. In 1903 Puccini was injured in a near-death automobile accident. In 1906, Giacosa died. In 1909, there was scandal after Puccini's wife, Elvira, falsely accused their maid Doria Manfredi of having an affair with Puccini. The maid then committed suicide. Elvira was successfully sued by the Manfredis and Giacomo had to pay damages. And in 1912, Puccini's editor, Giulio Ricordi, who had a very important role in the rising of his career, died.
Nonetheless, in 1910, Puccini completed La fanciulla del West, which he later on thought of as his most powerful opera, and, in 1917, finished the score of La rondine, 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.
In 1918, Il Trittico premiered in New York. This work is composed of three one-act operas: a horrific episode (Il Tabarro), in the style of the Parisian Grand Guignol, a sentimental tragedy (Suor Angelica) and a comedy or farce (Gianni Schicchi). Of the three, Gianni Schicchi is the most popular.
A habitual chain smoker of 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 treatment called radiation therapy, which was being offered in Brussels, Belgium. Puccini and his wife never knew about the degree of serious of the cancer, as the news was only revealed to his son. Puccini died there on November 29, 1924 from complications from the treatment. Uncontrolled bleeding led to a heart attack one 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. He was buried in Milan, but in 1926 his son ordered the transfer of his father's remains to the chapel in his house at Torre del Lago where he still lies with his wife and son. His death marked the end of opera as a popular art form. Turandot, his last opera, was left unfinished. The last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano. When the opera was premiered by Toscanini, in front of a sold out crowd with every prominent Italian in attendance (with the exception of Benito Mussolini), he had chosen not to perform the score by Alfano. The performance progressed to the last measures that Puccini himself completed and orchestrated, and at this point, the orchestra stopped, and the performers froze in position. Toscanini turned to the audience and said: "Here the opera finishes, because at this point the Maestro died". Only in 2001 an official new completion was made by Luciano Berio.
Puccini's operas:
Le Villi, 1884.
Edgar, 1889.
Manon Lescaut, 1893.
La boheme, 1896.
Tosca, 1900.
Madama Butterfly, 1904.
La fanciulla del West, 1910.
La rondine, 1917.
Il Trittico: Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, 1918.
Turandot, left unfinished in 1924 by the time of the composer's death, it was premiered in 1926 in a version completed by Franco Alfano.
 
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