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Giacomo Puccini (December 22, 1858 - November 29, 1924)

(Compiled September, 1996)

Puccini was born in Lucca, Tuscany, into a family whose musical history went back five generations. His father, Michelle, was organist and choirmaster of the Cathedral of San Martino, director of the city's music school (the Instituto Pacini) and a minor composer. When Giacomo was 6 his father died, leaving his wife Albina and the large family in constrained circumstances. Albina was determined that Giacomo should continue his musical studies, which he did, first with an uncle and then at the Instituto Pacini. At 10 he became a choirboy at San Martino and San Michele, and at 14 he began to play organ for the convent church. Word spread so that his services were in demand at other churches and even at a house of ill-repute. His earnings helped support the family. It is said that he supplemented his income, with the aid of his brother, by stealing organ pipes and selling them. This felony went undiscovered for some time as he would rearrange the music to avoid using the missing notes.

In 1876 Giacomo walked the 20 miles from Lucca to Pisa to hear a performance of Aida, an experience that inspired him to be a composer. His goal was to enroll in the Milan Conservatory, for which he petitioned Queen Margherita for support and also received a subsidy from his great-uncle Dr. Ceru. Before entering the conservatory he had to improve his notation skills, which were practically illegible. At the conservatory his teachers were Ponchielli and Brazzini, and a fellow student was Mascagni. For his graduation he wrote not opera music but an orchestral composition which was played July 14, 1883 to great acclaim.

‘Maestro’ Puccini emerged from the Conservatory in need of funds as his student support was now over. He declined to return to Lucca to teach at the Instituto Pacini, wanting instead to test the untried waters of opera composition. Ponchielli came to his aid by contacting his friend, publisher Giulio Ricordi, who said that he must first hear some operatic work of Puccini. Industrialist Edoardo Sonsogno was sponsoring an operatic competition - the Concorso Sonzogno - which had been won in 1890 by Mascagni with Cavalleria Rusticana. Again with Ponchielli's help, Puccini secured a libretto from Ferdinando Fontana and in September 1883 set to work on the score for Le Villi. The completed opera was scarcely considered for the prize because of its submission in rough draft; however, with Ponchielli and Fontana's support a public performance was set, and Ricordi agreed to print copies of the libretto gratis. The clamorous success of the premiere, May 31, 1994 led to Ricordi publishing Le Villi and furthermore commissioning a new opera from Puccini. It would be five years before Edgar would be performed. In the interim Puccini's mother died, and Puccini eloped with the wife of a former school friend along with one of her children. Elvira Gemingnani bore Puccini a son, Antonio, who remained illegitimate until Elvira's husband's death some 18 years later.

Edgar, at La Scala, Milan on Easter Sunday 1889, was greeted with public appreciation but critical disdain. It received only two more performances. The shareholders of Ricordi wanted to release Puccini, but Giulio Ricordi stood up for him and agreed to pay his retainer himself. His faith was never questioned after the opening of Manon Lescaut in Turin, (Ricordi's idea to remove it from Milan) February 1, 1893, which received the greatest response of any of his premieres. Puccini was hailed as the true heir to Verdi. He settled at the remote Tore Del Largo where he built his own villa and could work undisturbed.

Puccini worked slowly and had often uneasy relations with librettists. Richard found him the team of Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa with whom he successfully created La Boheme (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). Although it eventually became celebrated worldwide, Madama Butterfly was a disaster at its premiere, the same year that Puccini finally married Elvira Gemignani. They had an unhappy marriage, not helped by Puccini's unfaithfulness. One episode led to the suicide of a maidservant. The subsequent legal proceedings and scandal were followed by reconciliation. All this delayed the arrival of La Fanciulla del West based on another Belasco play and again pushing Puccini's understanding of foreign subjects.

Puccini provoked political controversy over his writing of La Rondine for the Vienna Opera soon after the outbreak of hostilities of World War 1 in 1914. It was also the only opera of his that was not published by Ricordi, with whom he had had fallen out. The war depleted the resources of Europe, and so the premiere of Il trittico, a trio of one act operas, was in New York on December 14, 1918. Puccini was unable to attend due to the many travel difficulties surrounding the Armistice. With one opera being more popular than the others and, as a whole considered too long of an evening, the individual operas, Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi have been presented separately.

In December 1921 Puccini was forced to move from his beloved villa at Torre del Lago because of the construction of a peat factory nearby that made it impossible to work. He wrote of this move as 'the greatest sorrow of my life.' Ahead of his time, Puccini moved to the fishing village of Viareggio before it became a fashionable resort.

While writing Turandot Puccini was diagnosed with throat cancer for which he sought treatment in Brussels. He died November 29, 1924 when his heart failed due to the stress of the treatments. A funeral took place on December 1 in Brussels, and he was interred In Milan December 3 with the Requiem music from Edgar playing. Two years later the coffin was moved to a mausoleum built by his son at the villa at Torre del Lago.

The tragedy of Turandot is that Puccini would have had time to complete the opera had the librettists sent him the final draft for the last duet on time. At the end of March 1924 he was praying "with hands clasped" for the last bit of text. Thus he was deprived of the chance to write the climax of his work, the scene that had drawn him to the subject in the first place. Toscanini had Turandot completed by Franco Alfano, and it was presented April 25, 1926 at La Scala. Toscanini laid down his baton at the point that Puccini had stopped writing and addressed the audience. The exact wording he used is the subject of much debate. My favorite is 'Here death triumphed over art.' The following evening Turandot was presented as completed by Alfano.

Chronological list of Puccini’s published works

 1876  Preludio Sinfonico
 1877  Cantata, I Figli d'Italia bella
 1878  Motet and Credo in Honor of San Paolino
 1880  Mass for 4 voices and orchestra
 1880-83  Scherzo for string quartet
   String Quartet in D
 1881  Songs, Melanconia and Allor ch'io saro
 1882  Songs, Noi legger and Spirito gentil
 1882-83 Fugues for string quartet
 1883  Capriccio Sinfonico
   Romanza, song
 1884  Le Villi, opera
 1888  Solfeggi, song
 1889  Edgar, opera
   E l'uccellino
 1890  Two Minuets for string quartet
   I Crisantemi for string quartet
 1893  Manon Lescaut, opera
 1896  La Boheme, opera
   March, Scozza elettrice
 1897 Inno a Diana, chorus & piano
 1899  Avanti, Urania, chorus & piano
 1900  Tosca, opera
 1904  Madama Butterfly, opera
 1905  Requiem for mixed voices and organ
 1910  Girl of the Golden West, opera
 1917  La Rondine, opera
 1918

Il Trittico, 3 one act operas in one evening.

Suor Angelica
Il Tabarro
Gianni Schicchi
 1919  Inn a Roma, chorus & orchestra
   
 Posthumously  
 1926  Turandot, opera

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Other musical compositions premiered the same year as Madama Butterfly (1904)

Bartok - Rhapsody, for piano orchestra Burlesca
Debussy - La Mer, L'isle joyeuese, Masques, Fetes galantes, Trois Chansons de France
Faure - Impromptu for harp
Glazounov - Violin Concerto
Holst - The Mystic Trumpeter; d'Indy - Violin Sonata
Ives - Orchestra Set No. 1
Janacek - Osud(Fate), Opera
Joplin - Cascades
Strauss, R - Symphonia Domestica
Sibelius - Symphony #3, Kuolema (Includes Valse Triste)
Stravinsky - Sonata in F# minor for piano, The Mushrooms going to War

 

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