Giacomo Puccini

“ His Manon is essentially French, entirely of the eighteenth century, bringing out in the music all the artificiality, all the airs and graces. While the story is not without flesh and blood, it remains as a thing apart, moving in its own sphere, full of its own special atmosphere. Puccini takes the same French story and gives us a moving lyric drama, which is on a far broader plane, is essentially human and common to every place, every race and all time, since it deals with purely elemental passions. ”

“ It varies considerably in the time, and has all that impulsive charm of movement with which Puccini always fits the situation and the sentiment. In actual structure the melody moves along in flowing vocal phrases, but they invariably drop on to an unexpected note and reveal thereby that piquancy of flavour which makes them singularly attractive. Anna is putting the bunch of flowers, the token of remembrance, in Roberto's valise when her lover comes in. ”

“ PUCCINI, GIACOMO (1858–⁠) , Italian operatic composer, was born at Lucca, of a family already distinguished in music; his great-great-grandfather Giacomo, great-grandfather Antonio, grandfather Domenico, and father Michele, being all well known in the art. He was educated at the Milan Conservatoire, and in 1884 his opera Le Villi was performed at the Teatro del Verme. ”

“ Puccini in the present year of grace, when I told him that I had seen an important opera revived in the provinces with the same strange disposal of the orchestra which had caused him such distress, threw back his head and roared with laughter, not in the least unkindly. "You are a delightful people and seriously artistic, but you will keep on doing such funny things." ”

“ In Siberia he uses folk songs of Russia. He has recently set The Jest by Sem Benelli librettist of L’Amore dei Tre Re (The Love of Three Kings) by Italo Montemezzi.
Puccini the Popular Idol Now we come to a delightful opera maker, Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) . He is the greatest modern Italian with the exception of Verdi. He has a distinctive touch that gives him individuality. He keeps a nice balance between voice, orchestra and melody. His music is always full of color and feeling. His themes, for the most part, touch the heart and have gained wide popularity. ”

“ Puccini has by the general mould of his work made his place and found his following on the operatic stage, and it is surely by the vocal strength and vocal continuity of his work that this place of his has been achieved and maintained. It is easy, of course, to point to the simplicity of the achievement when one sees the fruit of the labour: but without urging any one8 to copy an accepted model, or to merely repeat what has been already designed, one may wonder why, with so many gifted melodists among contemporary British musicians, no one has given us definite light opera. ”

“ A delightfully suave second section is sung by Roberto, in which he tells her of his love, strong and unending, born in the happy days of childhood. Anna catches the spirit of his fervent devotion, and the duet ends with their voices blending in a song of triumphant trust. The voices end together on a low note, but the orchestra carries the melody up to a high C by way of a climax, and then gives out a bell-like sound skilfully preceded by a chord of that somewhat abrupt modulation in which Puccini always delights, which portends the approach of night and the departure of Roberto. ”

“ From all of which the nature of Spinelli's opera may be understood.
We in America have for a number of years looked upon Giacomo Puccini as the greatest of living Italian opera composers. His devotees call him the greatest living creator of operatic music. Already his position is becoming insecure, for younger, more inspired and more learned men are appearing on the horizon of Italy's music. The Italians have never held Puccini in the same esteem as have Americans. Despite his many failures Pietro Mascagni has been the pride of Italian musicians and music-lovers. ”

“ Puccini begins his Manon with a short, bustling, vivacious prelude which continues for some twenty bars or so after the rise of the curtain, which discloses, as in Massenet's first act, the exterior of an inn at Amiens, with a crowd of citizens, students and girls, strolling about the square and the avenue. One of the students, Edmund, sings of the beautiful night dear to lovers and poets, and the band of his merry companions cut his vapourings short with laughter and jest. ”

“ I was very pleased on the whole with the way it eventually went, and although I did not see the subsequent London production, Ricordi told me that the Manchester performance was far more spontaneous."
How wonderfully Puccini is able, by playing a score of his on the piano and by his eloquent directions as to interpretation, to convey his subtlest meaning to an artist, I can speak from actual knowledge. I have heard him take a singer through a good deal of this very opera. Under his almost magical hands, a well learned interpretation is transformed into a genuinely spontaneous interpretation. ”

“ But in whatever way we view an opera, mere orchestral fulness will not serve to land the work very high up in the esteem of music lovers. Nor will the purely beautiful in music—melody worked out with transparent clearness of form—save a poor, unconvincing or uninteresting dramatic fabric from passing6 into the great storehouse of the unacted. Puccini's music is dramatic, and by far the greater part of it, by a sort of quick natural instinct, is purely of the theatre. ”

“ Very seldom is the story of an opera so intensely thrilling that the original author is borne in mind; but it may be stated as a fact that no one applauds Giacomo Puccini's splendid music without also thinking "All Hail!" ”

“ Puccini's librettists follow a different plan, and the Manon of the Italian composer is a species of impressionistic scenes more or less loosely strung together, which, while they demand perhaps a knowledge of the story for their full appreciation—and to opera goers the story is, of course, quite familiar—exhibit that quality of conjuring up the atmosphere not so much of the actual place and characters, but of the spirit which underlies the pathetic tragedy. ”

“ Puccini often allows the best part of the day to pass in more or less what seems like idleness, preferring to put down his music at night—the one relic, one may say, of his old wayward restless ways. He works chiefly on the ground floor of his house at Torre del Lago, in a spacious apartment which is a sort of dining-room, study and music-room all in one. ”

“ Over the distant landscape dawn is breaking. With a bell effect, of which Puccini is so fond, the simple prelude begins. The plain and straightforward progression of light chords is French in character, but the bell effect is established musically by the simple leap of a fifth in the bass. The chords continue, with a filagree figure placed above them, and from delicate musical suggestion the effect turns to realism as the bell itself sounds, ushering in the notes of the unseen chorus, as the Angelus rings from the church. ”

“ Giacomo became a fair player, and was sent off to take charge of the music at the church of Muligliano, a little village three miles from Lucca, and in a short time he had the church of S. Pietro at Somaldi added to his responsibilities. It was during the exercise of his church duties that the spirit of composition seems to have descended upon him, and certainly, if not in actually a novel way, a rather disconcerting one. During the offertory, and at other places in the Mass, it was the custom of the organist to improvise a more or less extended pièce d'occasion, a custom which still obtains. ”

“ The most important of the younger men is Giacomo Puccini, a composer who during the last decade has come to the front in a decisive manner. His first opera, 'Le Villi,' was produced in 1884. The subject is a strange one to have taken the fancy of a southern composer. It is founded upon one of those weird traditions which seem essentially the property of Northern Europe. Villi, or in English, Wilis, are the spirits of affianced damsels, whose lovers have proved untrue. They rise from the earth at midnight, and assemble upon the highway attired in all their bridal finery. ”

“ The Dal Verme Theatre, where Puccini's first opera was produced, has been the scene of many experiments in the art of opera. More than one composer has been able to get a hearing there, if no more, and among the list of trials and experiments—the value of which taken as a whole will doubtless some day be accounted at their proper worth, and which still come out like shades of the night to remind us how little we appreciate native endeavour—are to be found the names of more than one English composer. ”

“ A finer or more moving scene than that of Fidelia's farewell is hardly to be found in the whole range of what may be termed modern opera. Taken as it stands Edgar proved that Puccini had emphatically progressed49 beyond his achievement of Le Villi. Amid the sweet notes of love there come strong and virile expressions of anger, tumult and indignation, but the main theme is kept clearly to the front with all that force that stands as the leading characteristic of Italian opera, old or new—definite and direct vocal expression. ”

“ One is on the interesting question as to dramatic instinct in music. Puccini maintains that it is a question not of instinct but experience. He says himself that his early works were lacking in dramatic quality, but he does not agree that if it is not inborn it cannot be developed. He maintains that the choice of librettos has more to do with it than anything else, and from the first he has worked a good deal in this way by more than the usual amount of consultation and exchange of ideas that goes on between a composer and the writer of the book. ”

“ From the beginning he was concerned with the continuous flow of melody, since he had not, like Verdi, to get away exactly from the old form of the set numbers; but in Puccini's case, the growth referred to is seen in his latest work in the further elaboration of the orchestral portion. Although in England we have had few experiments worked out in the way of the development of opera, it is safe to say that such new modern works as have been taken to our hearts have owed not a little to the orchestral part of the fabric. ”

“ It was not a success on its first representation, and the blame was laid for the most part on the libretto. Seeing, however, in the history of opera how many a worse book has passed muster, it is a little curious that Puccini's second work should have been so completely laid on the shelf. It is not the lack of dramatic qualities that make the story of Edgar a poor one; it is rather that the story, as a play, does not contain enough of characterisation to really retain the interest. ”

“ From the old world story of Murger, Puccini turned to a notable example of modern French stagecraft, in Sardou's drama of La Tosca. His librettists again were Giocosa and Illica, and they provided the composer with a strikingly apt presentation of the grim story; not one, perhaps, that lends itself altogether to musical expression, but one which certainly grips the attention and carries the hearer along. By Tosca, Puccini certainly sustained his now universal popularity made manifest by the preceding La Bohème. ”

“ He went there to reside first in 1891, about the time he was writing La Bohème; but some time before that he had found a partner of his joys in Elvira Bonturi, who, like himself, came from Lucca, and whom he married. Their only son, Antonio, was born in the December of 1886. It was not until 1900 that Puccini built the delightful villa at Torre del Lago to which he is so devotedly attached, and to which he always refers as a Paradise. ”

“ Guglielmo, the father, is asked to join in the dance, and he does so after a short instrumental passage leading back to the dance and chorus proper. Guglielmo dances off with his partner and the stage is clear.
Anna comes down alone as the orchestra finish off the rhythmic figure of the waltz. She holds a bunch of forget-me-nots in her hand, and sings of remembrance in a characteristic melody which at once reveals Puccini's individuality both in melody and structure. ”

“ The first of the family to turn his attention to opera was Domenico Puccini, the son of the foregoing, who, like his father and grandfather, after studying at Bologna, and under the famous Paisiello at Naples, also held the post at Lucca. ”

“ It supposes that Puccini is the author of his own book, and on the whole prefers Massenet's libretto, and points out that the climax of the piece, musically, if not dramatically, is the penultimate scene, outside the prison at Havre. The finale to this scene in which occur the comments of the crowd on the prisoners, some of whom are covered with confusion, while others are jauntily defiant, is hailed as the finest number in the work. The weakest thing in the opera is, according to this critic, the intermezzo, but an atonement is made by the opening of the third act. ”

“ Puccini was at Rome for a time soon after his complete recovery from his accident, and took special pains to get up the local colour for his new work. For this he invoked the aid of the Japanese ambassadress, and obtained some actual Japanese melodies from a friend of hers in Paris. Of music there is no lack in Japan, but by the Japanese themselves it is never written down. ”