Puccini’s Music By Sandy Thorburn

If there is one composer that opera buffs think of when United States, and Madama Butterfly involves a tragic love the word “opera” is mentioned, it is Giacomo Puccini. story between an American naval captain named Pinkerton His name is synonymous to many with Italian opera. His and a Japanese geisha. Turandot is about a wild and angry world is filled with weeping Romantic tenors pleading princess in China who forces all her suitors to answer an for the beautiful soprano not to die, just when they have unanswerable riddle in order to avoid an arranged marriage. discovered that they love each other: sad, beautiful, and La Bohème is about the Romantic “Bohemian” culture of quintessentially Italian. the 19th-century Parisian Left Bank. Tosca features a fiery opera singer (played, usually, by a fiery opera singer!) who refuses to betray her love Cavaradossi to the evil Roman police chief Scarpia. Did you know? Puccini operas almost always Did Puccini find the key to never-ending popularity of his feature beautiful orchestrations that music? In 1994, Jonathan Larson paid homage to the closely follow the drama, but seldom composer and La Bohème, when he wrote his Tony Award- double the melody sung by the singer. winning musical Rent, using similar characters and storyline Often the melody played by the and even melodies from Puccini’s score! The hit musical orchestra is better, and more interesting was even made into a motion picture in 2005 using some (and more complete) than the sung of the original cast members. Hollywood Director Baz melody. Listen to any of the suggested Luhrmann (Australia, Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet) listening examples and see if you can produced a modernized version of the opera, setting it in discover this in the music. Paris in 1957 instead of the 1840s.

Puccini’s attention to common characters and larger-than- life emotions expressed through unforgettable melodies Puccini wrote straight from his heart, and made more contribute to his musical appeal to audiences over the money than any composer of his time. His operas – La ages. Bohème, La fanciulla del West, Tosca, Turandot, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut all capture the Romantic Era in which he lived. This was a time of newly discovered Sandy Thorburn is a member of the COC’s Volunteer Speakers Bureau. cultures, and a new style of drama. This realistic style populated the stage with everyday characters, suffering, singing and dying. This shift from 18th-century writing about gods and royalty to common characters was an The opera that artistic movement in the 1870s called “verismo”, meaning could not be finished “true to life” in Italian. In verismo opera, long ornamented Turandot is based on a fairy tale written arias were abandoned in favour of melodramatic speech by Venetian playwright Carlo Gozzi as a set to music – the recitative or parlando style (speaking comic fairytale. Puccini had a great deal style) – which was regarded as more naturalistic in its of trouble turning her into a tragic figure, imitation of everyday speech. and continued trying until his death. He died without finishing the opera. It was Puccini was interested in new worlds – new sounds, completed after his death by clothes, places, and stories – and this passion truly Franco Alfano and premiered to great inspired his compositions. He wrote La fanciulla del West acclaim in 1926. (The Girl of the Golden West) about the wild west of the

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