One of the world's most successful opera composers, with La bohème, Tosca, Madame Butterfly and Turandot, Giacomo Puccini left a number of unforgettable arias and renewed the genre by adapting it to Italian verismo and modern theater. Born in Lucca, Tuscany, on December 22, 1858, Giacomo Puccini came from a five-generation line of musicians that included Jacopo Puccini in the 18th century, Antonio Puccini, Domenico Puccini and his father Michele Puccini, organist, choirmaster and composer. When his father died at the age of five, he was entrusted to the care of his maternal uncle Fortunato Magi, the new choirmaster of San Martino Cathedral, who taught him organ and choral singing. Although he showed little talent for music or for his studies at the San Michele seminary and then at the Pacini Institute, he nevertheless played the organ in several churches and discovered secular music with Verdi's opera Aïda, which his teacher at the conservatory had recommended to him. On March 11, 1876, Puccini went to Pisa to attend a performance that was to change his life. Following this revelation, he composed the Messa di Gloria, performed in Lucca, then entered the Milan Conservatory in October 1880 on a scholarship from Queen Margherita, to study with Antonio Bazzini and Amilcare Ponchielli, the composer of La Gioconda, an opera premiered four years earlier. Three years later, he composed Capriccio sinfonico, graduated from the conservatory and wrote, with librettist Ferdinando Fontana, his first opera, Le Villi, for a competition organized by publisher Sonzogno. Although he did not win the prize, the work was premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme on May 31, 1884, and is still performed. Following this premiere, Verdi's publisher Giulio Ricordi commissioned a new opera, Edgar, based on Alfred de Musset, which premiered at La Scala in Milan on April 21, 1889. In the meantime, Puccini was living the bohemian life with his friends Pietro Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo, and began an affair with Elvira Gemignani (née Bonturi), married to a Lucca grocer, whom she left to live with him, which caused quite a scandal. The couple moved to Torre del Lago, where they had a son named Antonio in 1886. After the failure ofEdgar, which received very few subsequent performances (the French premiere took place in Nice in November 2024), his third opera, Manon Lescaut, premiered at Turin's Teatro Regio on February 1, 1893, proved a triumph. Adapted from the novel by Abbé Prévost by five librettists, including Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, the work, whose working title was Tosca, borrowed themes from several earlier compositions, including theAgnus dei from the Messe à quatre voix (1880) and Crisantemi for string quartet (1890). The collaboration with Illica and Giacosa continued with the next three operas, starting with La bohème, inspired by Henri Murger's Scènes de la vie de bohème and premiered under Arturo Toscanini's baton on February 1, 1896. Despite its profusion of arias and its musical and dramatic audacity, the work took a long time to win over audiences two years later in Paris - where the opera is set - and in London, giving rise to film adaptations. Now considered Verdi's successor, Puccini transposed literary verismo to opera in Tosca, as his friends Mascagni had done in Cavalleria rusticana (1890) and Leoncavallo in Pagliacci (1892). Premiered at Rome's Teatro Costanzi on January 14, 1900, to a stunned audience and skeptical critics, the work inspired by Victorien Sardou's play would eventually win acclaim thanks to arias such as "E lucevan le stelle" and the famous "Vissi d'arte" immortalized by Maria Callas. After acquiring an automobile, the composer was involved in an accident on February 25, 1903 that left him with a broken leg and a lifelong limp. Recovering after a long convalescence, he married Elvira on January 3, 1904, and put the finishing touches to the opera Madame Butterfly, based on David Belasco's play, which he had seen in London and immediately bought the rights to. The premiere at La Scala, Milan, on February 17, 1904, was another failure, this time apparently due to rivalries. The opera, set in Japan and featuring an American officer and a geisha, lasted only one evening, but was soon triumphant all over the world and in several languages, with arias such as "Un bel di, vedremo" and the closed-mouth chorus. After Giacosa's death in 1906, Puccini made several trips to the United States to supervise productions of his operas. His infidelities with female singers and admirers led to frequent domestic disputes between the couple. When his wife suspected an affair with their servant, Doria Manfredi, and questioned her constantly, the latter committed suicide, causing a scandal when the autopsy revealed her virginity. After a trial, Elvira is imprisoned for five months and the composer is forced to pay damages to the Manfredi family to avoid punishment. Affected by this affair, Puccini returned to the public eye with La fanciulla del West, an innovative opera again adapted from Belasco, this time set in the Far West. His friend Arturo Toscanini conducted the premiere at New York's Metropolitan Opera on December 10, 1910, starring Enrico Caruso. March 27, 1917 saw the Monte-Carlo premiere of La Rondine, set on the Côte d'Azur, before Il trittico, which brought together the works Il tabarro, Suor Angelica and the best-known of the three, Gianni Schicchi andits famous aria "O mio babbino caro", premiered as desired on the same evening at the Met in New York on December 14, 1918. Inspired by a fable by Carlo Gozzi, the story of his last opera, Turandot, set in medieval China, bears some similarities to his personal affair. Left unfinished with two scenes to go, the score, including the illustrious "Nessun dorma", was completed by Franco Alfano, but Toscanini, commissioned to conduct the premiere at La Scala in Milan on April 25, 1926, laid down his baton at the last bar written by the composer. For a long time, the opera was performed in this version, without the last scene, which was also the subject of new interpretations by other composers. Diagnosed with throat cancer, Giacomo Puccini went to Brussels for radiotherapy, where he remained for a month, before succumbing to a heart attack on November 29, 1924, at the age of 65.
