Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (22 December 1858 – 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-nineteenth-century Romantic Italian opera, it later developed in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.

His most renowned works are La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and the unfinished Turandot (posthumously completed by Franco Alfano), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded in the entirety of the operatic repertoire.

Family and education

Born in Lucca in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in 1858; he was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini (1813–1864) and Albina Magi (1830–1884). The Puccini family was established in Lucca as a local musical dynasty by Puccini's great-great-grandfather – also named Giacomo (1712–1781). This first Giacomo Puccini, though often referred to as Jacopo, was maestro di cappella of the Cattedrale di San Martino in Lucca. He was succeeded in this position by his son, Antonio Puccini, and then by Antonio's son Domenico, and then his son, Michele. Each Puccini studied music at Bologna, and some took additional musical studies elsewhere. Domenico Puccini studied for a time under Giovanni Paisiello. Each composed music for the church. In addition, Domenico composed several operas, and Michele composed one opera. Puccini's father Michele enjoyed a reputation throughout northern Italy, and his funeral was an occasion of public mourning, at which the then-famed composer Giovanni Pacini conducted a Requiem.

With the Puccini family having occupied the position of maestro di cappella for 124 years (1740–1864) by the time of Michele's death, it was anticipated that Michele's son Giacomo would occupy that position as well when he was old enough. However, when Michele Puccini died in 1864, Giacomo was only six years old and thus incapable of assuming his father's post. As a child, he nevertheless participated in the musical life of the Cattedrale di San Martino, as a member of the boys' choir, and later as a substitute organist.

Puccini received a general education at the San Michele seminary in Lucca, and then at the seminary of the cathedral. One of Puccini's uncles, Fortunato Magi, supervised his musical education. In 1880 Puccini achieved a diploma from Lucca's Pacini School of Music, having studied there with Magi, and later with Carlo Angeloni, who had also instructed Alfredo Catalani. A grant from Queen Margherita, and assistance from another uncle, Nicholas Cerù, provided the funds necessary for Puccini to continue his studies at the Milan Conservatory for a further three years; there, he studied composition with Stefano Ronchetti-Monteviti, Amilcare Ponchielli, Amintore Galli, and Antonio Bazzini. He shared his dorm with Pietro Mascagni. Later that year, Puccini composed his Mass, marking the culmination of his family's long association with liturgical music in his native Lucca.

Early career and first operas

As a thesis piece for the Milan Conservatory, Puccini composed the orchestral Capriccio sinfonico ("Symphonic caprice"). Puccini's teachers, Ponchielli and Bazzini, were impressed by his work, which was subsequently performed at a student concert at the conservatory on 14 July 1883, conducted by Franco Faccio. The Capriccio was favourably reviewed in the Milanese publication La Perseveranza, and thus Puccini began to build a reputation as a young composer of promise in Milanese music circles.

Le Villi

Following the première of the Capriccio sinfonico, Ponchielli and Puccini discussed the possibility that Puccini's next work might be an opera. Ponchielli invited Puccini to stay at his villa, where Puccini was introduced to Ferdinando Fontana. They agreed to collaborate on an opera, for which Fontana would provide the libretto. Puccini submitted the work, titled Le Villi ('The Fairies'), for Casa Musicale Sonzogno's first of four musical competitions, advertised in April 1883, for a new, unperformed opera "inspired by the best traditions of Italian opera", which could be "idyllic, serious, or comic", to be judged by a panel including Galli and Ponchielli. Puccini's submission was disqualified because its manuscript was illegible; the second competition, in 1889, was notably won by Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.

Despite the defeat in the competition, Le Villi was later staged at the Teatro Dal Verme, premiering on 31 May 1884. Casa Ricordi assisted with the première by printing the libretto without charge. Fellow students from the Milan Conservatory formed a large part of the orchestra. The performance was enough of a success that Casa Ricordi purchased the opera. Revised into a two-act version with an intermezzo between the acts, Le Villi was performed at La Scala in Milan, on 24 January 1885. However, Ricordi did not publish the score until 1887, hindering further performance of the work.

Edgar

Impressed with Le Villi and its composer, music publisher Giulio Ricordi commissioned a second opera from Puccini, which would result in Edgar. Work begun in 1884 when Fontana began working out the scenario for the libretto. Puccini finished primary composition in 1887, and orchestration in 1888. Edgar premiered at La Scala on 21 April 1889 to a lukewarm response. The work was withdrawn for revisions after its third performance. In a Milanese newspaper, Giulio Ricordi published a defence of Puccini's skill as a composer, while criticizing Fontana's libretto. A revised version met with success at the Teatro del Giglio in Puccini's native Lucca on 5 September 1891. In 1892, further revisions reduced the length of the opera from four acts to three, in a version that was well received in Ferrara and was performed in Turin and in Spain. Puccini made further revisions in 1901 and 1905, but the work never achieved popularity. Without the personal support of Ricordi, Edgar might have cost Puccini his career. Puccini had eloped with his former piano student, the married Elvira Gemignani (née Bonturi), and Ricordi's associates were willing to turn a blind eye to his lifestyle as long as he was successful. When Edgar failed, they suggested to Ricordi that he should drop Puccini, but Ricordi said that he would stay with him and continued his allowance until his next opera.

Manon Lescaut

On commencing his next opera, Manon Lescaut, Puccini announced that he would write his own libretto so that "no fool of a librettist" could spoil it. Ricordi persuaded him to accept Ruggero Leoncavallo as his librettist, but Puccini soon asked Ricordi to remove him from the project. Four other librettists were then involved with the opera, as Puccini constantly changed his mind about the structure of the piece. It was almost by accident that the final two, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, came together to complete the opera.

Manon Lescaut premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 2 February 1893. By coincidence, Puccini's first enduringly popular opera appeared within a week of the premiere of Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, which was first performed on 9 February 1893. In anticipation of the premiere, La Stampa wrote that Puccini was a young man concerning whom "great hopes" had a real basis ("un giovane che è tra i pochi sul quale le larghe speranze non siano benigne illusioni"). Because of the failure of Edgar, however, a failure of Manon Lescaut could have jeopardized Puccini's future as a composer. Although Giulio Ricordi, head of Casa Ricordi, was supportive of Puccini while Manon Lescaut was still in development, the Casa Ricordi board of directors was considering cutting off Puccini's financial support. In any event, "Manon Lescaut was Puccini's first and only uncontested triumph, acclaimed by critics and public alike." After the London premiere in 1894, George Bernard Shaw pronounced: "Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals."

Manon Lescaut was a great success and established Puccini's reputation as the most promising rising composer of his generation, and the most likely "successor" to Verdi as the leading exponent of the Italian operatic tradition. Illica and Giacosa returned as librettists for Puccini for his next three operas, probably his greatest successes: La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly.