Puccini, Giacomo

Puccini, Giacomo (jä`kōmō pt-chē`nē), 1858–1924, Italian composer of operas. He wrote some of the most popular works in the opera repertory. A descendant of a long line of musicians, he studied piano and organ at his Tuscan birthplace, Lucca, and in 1880 entered the Milan Conservatory. He first gained recognition with a one-act opera, Le Villi (1884). His finest operas, Manon Lescaut (1893), La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (produced posthumously in 1926), display his characteristically lyric style and masterful orchestration, evoking strongly dramatic emotional effects. Although the characters in his operas are rather generalized, romantic figures, they come alive through expressive melody. A penchant for exotic settings produced some incongruities in his music, as in La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West, 1910), and some of his works have been criticized for excessive sentimentality. Wit and dramatic vivacity, however, mark his comic opera Gianni Schicchi (1918), and Puccini has remained, with Verdi, a preeminent master of the Italian operatic stage.

Bibliography

See his letters, ed. by G. Adami (tr. 1931, repr. 1973); biographies by V. Seligman (1938), M. Carner (1959), R. Specht (tr. 1933, repr. 1970), and M. J. Phillips-Matz (2002); critical biography by J. Budden (2002); studies by W. Ashbrook (1985) and W. Berger (2005).

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Puccini, Giacomo (Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria)

(born Dec. 22, 1858, Lucca, Tuscany—died Nov. 29, 1924, Brussels, Belg.) Italian composer. Born into a family of organists and choirmasters, he was inspired to write operas after hearing Giuseppe Verdi's Aïda in 1876. At the Milan Conservatory he studied with Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–86). Puccini entered his first opera, Le villi (1883), in a competition; though it lost, a group of his friends subsidized its production, and its premiere took place with immense success. His second, Edgar (1889), was a failure, but Manon Lescaut (1893) brought him international recognition. His mature operas included La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madam Butterfly (1904), and The Girl of the Golden West (1910). All four are tragic love stories; his use of the orchestra was refined, and he established a dramatic structure that balanced action and conflict with moments of repose, contemplation, and lyricism. They remained exceedingly popular into the 21st century. He was the most popular opera composer in the world at the time of his death; his unfinished Turandot was completed by Franco Alfano (1875–1954).