While recovering from an automobile accident, he wrote his new opera: "Madama Butterfly."
Giacomo Puccini was born Dec. 22, 1858 in Lucca, Italy. The Puccinis were a famously musical family: stretching back through the 19th-century to the 18th century. They had been employed as church musicians, so much that the Puccini name was associated with church composer in his hometown.
Giacomo received his first musical education from his father, the Inspector of the Institute on Music. After his father’s death in 1864, his training was placed in the hands of Carlo Angeloni, one of his father’s pupils. His musical progress was rapid, and he was soon able to fill the post of organist in nearby churches and to write two choral works that were well received by the townspeople.
“One of those works was his Messa a Quattro Voci con Orchestra, a five-movement mass for large orchestra, four-part chorus, and tenor and baritone soloists. It was first performed in Lucca in 1880.
Puccini soon became something of a local celebrity. That position allowed him to procure a small subsidy from Queen Margherita. Additional funds from a great uncle enabled him to go to Milan in 1880 to continue his studies.
He enrolled at the Milan Conservatory where his teachers included Antonio Bazzini, the composer of the violin piece “The Witches’ Dance” and Amilcare Ponchielli, the composer of the opera “La Gioconda.” Ponchielli aroused Puccini’s love for the stage and directed him toward writing opera. Actually, it was a performance of Verdi’s “Aida” in Pisa in 1876 that first fired his youthful operatic imagination. Ponchielli had a friend, Ferdinand Fontana, provide Puccini with a suitable libretto, urged him to set it to music and submit it in the Sorrogno contest for one-act operas. The young composer completed his first opera “Le Villi” (“The Wills”). Although it did not win the prize, there was sufficient interest to prompt the management of the Teatro dal Verme in Milan to stage it May 31, 1884. It was so successful that Milan’s La Scala accepted it for the following season.
The publisher Ricordi published the score for “Le Villi” and commissioned a second opera “Edgar,” which was a failure when it premiered at La Scala April 21, 1889. The failure was mainly the fault of Ferdinand Fontan’s libretto. Some years of poverty and struggle were part of Puccini’s life during these years, but that changed with the premiere of “Manon Lescaut” in Turin Feb. 1, 1893. It was such a triumph that the composer was now famous. It was also the first time that Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacoso furnished the libretto for one of his operas. They would also work with the composer on “La Bohéme,” “Tosca” and “Madama Butterfly.”
Some of Puccini’s early compositions were recycled in his operas: the 1883 “Adagietto” was used in Fidelia’s aria, “Addio, mio dolce amor” in “Edgar;” the 1883 “Salve Regina” was used in the finale of part one of “Le Villi;” and the main themes from the 1890 “Crisantemi” were used in the fourth act of “Manon Lescaut.”
His list of operas now had many successes and few misfires.
“La Bohéme” premiered in Turin in 1896. That premiere was conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini, who in 1946 would conduct the NBC Symphony in a performance of the opera.
The premiere of “Tosca” in Rome in 1900 brought Puccini recognition as Verdi’s successor.
While recovering from an automobile accident, he wrote his new opera: “Madama Butterfly.” It was a failure when it premiered at La Scala Feb. 17, 1904. Some revisions turned it into a success when it was performed in Brescia May 28, 1904.
While in New York to supervise the production of “Madama Butterfly” at the Metropolitan Opera in 1907, he agreed to compose a work with an American setting; “La Fanciulla del West,” (The Girl of the Golden West) premiered at the Met Dec. 10, 1910. It was one of the most exciting premieres to take place at the Met. Puccini was in the audience.
The composer was tempted by vast sums of money to write a comic opera like “Rosenkavalier” but more amusing and more organic. “La Rondine,” which premiered at Monte Carlo March 27, 1917, was no “Rosenkavalier,” but it did have a bittersweet and melodious score.
Puccini would return to the Met for the three operas that make up “Il Trittico” (“Il Tabarro,” “Suor Angelica” and “Gianni Schicchi”). The premiere took place Dec. 14, 1918. “Il Trittico” was a testament to Puccini’s versatility and his ability to compose three contrasting mini-operas.
While Puccini was working on “Turandot,” a throat trouble that had been vaguely threatening for some time became serious. The doctors diagnosed it as cancer, and he was operated on in November 1924. He died Nov. 19, leaving “Turandot” unfinished. His friend, Franco Alfano, completed the third act, so that the premiere could take place April 25, 1926 at Milan’s La Scala. At the premiere performance, the conductor Arturo Toscanini stopped the performance at the point where Alfano’s work began.
Puccini’s operas have been used as the basis for Hollywood films: a silent version of “La Bohème” was filmed in 1926 with Lillian Gish and John Gilbert (the film was based on the Murger novel, not the libretto of the opera). “Madama Butterfly” was filmed in 1932 with Sylvia Sidney and Cary Grant (the film used none of Puccini’s music). In recent years, the musical “Rent” was based on “La Bohème.”
Puccini possessed a taste for high drama, a highly developed feeling for the theater, a miraculous facility for composing unforgettable melodies and a genius for influencing emotions. If one judges his importance by box office receipts, he is the most successful composer to have written opera in the 20th century.
Bill Campbell, a native of Abingdon, Virginia, taught in Washington County, Virginia, schools for five years and in Norfolk, Virginia, schools for 37 years. While living in Norfolk, he sang in the chorus of the Virginia Opera in productions of Puccini’s “La Bohème,” “Tosca” and “Turandot.” He is host of “Vocal Treasures,” which is heard Saturdays at 12 p.m. on WETS-FM, HD 3 in Johnson City, Tennessee, and on Tuesdays at 3 p.m., on WEHC-FM 90.7 in Emory, Virginia.
