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Home , Amilcare Ponchielli, Giulio Ricordi, Giuseppe Adami, Pietro Mascagni

Biography:

Born Dec. 22, 1858 in Lucca, ; died Nov. 29, 1924 in Brussels, Belgium

Puccini was born into a family that had been providing There was a long break before his next premiere, partly due organists and to the city of Lucca for four to a tragedy in his domestic life. Puccini had begun living generations. Following the family tradition, he started with a married woman, Elvira Gemignani, only able to marry work as a professional organist at the age of 14. Fate her himself when her first husband died. Their marriage changed his career path when at the age of 18 he was was not an easy one and eventually Elvira accused inspired to pursue studies in operatic composition after Puccini of having an affair with a servant girl. The tension attending a performance of Verdi’s Aida. In 1880 Puccini in the household became intolerable and the servant girl began his studies at the Conservatory where he committed suicide. A court case determined that she had was surrounded by compositional geniuses: one of his not had an affair with Puccini, and Elvira was jailed for five instructors was ( of the months. The resulting publicity caused Puccini to withdraw , 1876). He and Ponchielli shared for a while and also separate from his wife. They later accommodations with (composer of reconciled but their marriage was damaged permanently. the opera , 1890). In 1882 Puccini entered his first operaLe villi (The Witches) into a Inspired early in his career by Verdi and Wagner, Puccini competition run by the publishing firm of Sonzogno. It began to explore new composing territory with La fanciulla didn’t win but it garnered the attention of the publisher del West (which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in , with whom Puccini was to enjoy a lifelong New York in 1910). This shift in style, which involved more association. innovative and challenging orchestration and harmonies, alluded to Debussy and Strauss and silenced some of his Puccini’s first great success wasManon Lescaut, which critics who considered him incapable of artistic growth. premiered in in 1893. The collaboration between Now he was hailed as the true heir of Verdi. Puccini and his librettists, and Giuseppe Giacosa, was responsible for three of the most successful While working on (1917) with librettist of all time: La Bohème (1896), (1900) and Giuseppe Adami, Puccini began composing his collection Madama Butterfly (1904). Audiences to this day love of three one-act operas (), which comprised Il Puccini’s soaring impassioned orchestrations, dramatic tabarro (again with Adami), Suor Angelica and Gianni intensity and beautiful melodies. Schicchi. Puccini’s last work, , was unfinished when the composer died after a battle with throat cancer. This last work is usually performed today with the ending written by Franco Alfano.

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