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Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca on 22 December, 1858, the
fifth of a large family, oldest son, and the last descendant
of a family of musicians. His father died when he was barely
six years old, leaving his young wife, Albina, with six
children under the age of thirteen (another died early in
childhood) and heavily pregnant with her last child. The
senior Puccini was organist, teacher and composer at the
Cathedral of San Martino, in Lucca, a position held by his
ancestors before him since 1739. He wrote two operas which
have been lost, however many of his other works remain. When
he died in 1864, the City Council of Lucca temporarily
appointed Albina's brother, Fortunato Magi, himself a
musician and student of Michele Puccini's, organist and
choirmaster of its most important cathedral, with the
stipulation that the place be held for the young Puccini,
who should assume his father's position as soon as he was
qualified.
After his father died, Giacomo attended the seminary of San
Martino, and later, sang in the choir there and at San
Michele. In 1872, when Magi took over the direction of the
Pacini Institute of Music, Albina enrolled her son there and
Giacomo's forbidding and severe uncle took control of his
musical development. The young Puccini was a restless and
inattentive student, and the two did not enjoy a harmonious
relationship. Magi campaigned Albina to have his nephew
removed from the Institute, claiming that Giacomo did not
belong in a serious institution. Albino insisted he stay
however, and eventually, Puccini was assigned to another
professor, Carlo Angeloni, who taught harmony and
composition. Angeloni had also been a student of Michele
Puccini's and was a composer himself, who loved opera. He
had quite an influence over his student, and exposed him to
several scores written by Verdi-Rigoletto, La Traviata and
Il Trovotore.
During those years at the Pacini Institute under Angeloni
(1874-1880), Puccini began composing his own material, often
inserting it as he played the organ (which he disliked) at
local church services. In 1876, he went to Pisa to see one
of his first opera performances, Aida, and this single event
quite possibly marked the point at which Giacomo Puccini
definitively decided to abandon the life prescribed him by
his father, his ancestors and the City of Lucca: so strong
by then was Puccini's interest in opera that he walked from
Lucca to Pisa for this performance, after which he said
"When I heard Aida at Pisa, I felt that a musical window had
opened for me."
After obtaining his diploma from the Pacini School of Music
in Lucca in 1880, Puccini went to study composition in Milan
at the Conservatory, thanks to financial support from his
family. In Milan, Puccini lived a very frugal life; after
Michele Puccini's death the family's financial situation was
precarious, and Albina struggled to keep them above the
poverty line. However, her hopes were pinned on her son's
success and she did everything she could to ensure he had
the education that would provide him with a solid basis for
his musical future. At the Conservatory, which was
considered Italy's finest training ground for singers,
composers and musicians, Puccini studied under Bazzini and
Ponchielli, who was later to become one of his most
important mentors. Ponchielli had previously written La
Gioconda, which had opened in 1876. Again, Puccini proved to
be a restless student, as he had been in Lucca, and was
eventually fined by the Conservatory for his "unjustified
absences." However, Puccini was writing music throughout his
studies, and when he left the Conservatory in 1883, the
piece he wrote for the end-of-year concert, Capriccio
sinfonico, revealed the great gifts of the young composer
and was conducted by the leading conductor of the day,
garnering very promising results.
Puccini's stay in Milan was very important for many reasons,
not least of which was the people with whom he came into
contact: he became associated with the Scapigliatura
movement (a group of intellectual aesthetics known as 'the
Disheveled ones from Milan'); he also met
Pietro Mascagni, with
whom he shared a room for a few months, and Ferdinando
Fontana who suggested the idea for and would become
Puccini's first librettist. In April , 1883, the Milanese
publisher
Edoardo Sonzogno
announced a competition to find the best new opera in one
act by a young Italian composer. Puccini composed Le Willis
and entered it in the competition, but he submitted his work
at the last moment, without having made a fair copy of the
manuscript; thus it was passed over. However, the opera was
staged on May 31st, 1884, at
Teatro Dal Verme in
Milan, thanks to a group of friends and admiring influential
investors, achieving great acclaim from the public and the
critics. "The composer that Italy has been waiting for for a
long time..." wrote Gramola in Corriere della Sera, and in
the opinion of one wealthy patron of the arts, Marco Sala,
"Puccini's opera is a small precious masterpiece from
beginning to end." This small triumph enabled Puccini to
sign his first contract with the great publishing house of
Ricordi, who commissioned a new opera from him. And so his
second opera, Edgar, with libretto also by Fontana, came
about (La Scala, Milan, April, 1889) although it did not
achieve the level of success for which the publisher was
hoping. However, Ricordi continued to have faith in Puccini,
and supported the financially struggling young composer for
several years until at last, with his third opera, Manon
Lescaut (Turin,
Teatro Regio, February
1893), success, fame, validation and the longed-for
affluence finally arrived. Puccini was 35 years old.
In 1891, while Puccini was still working on Manon Lescaut,
he settled permanently in Torre del Lago.
Puccini loved nature and the outdoors, and he had come to
love the lake, Massaciuccoli, during visits he had made
there since 1884. He found a property near the water's edge
that had once been an ancient tower from which the area
derived its name, and in 1900, restructured it to create the
villa where he lived and worked for almost 30 years. Here on
the banks of Lake Massaciuccoli, he eventually wrote most of
his operas including La Bohème (Turin, Teatro Regio,
February 1896), Tosca (Rome, Teatro Costanzi, January 1900),
and Madama Butterfly (Brescia, Teatro Grande, May 1904).
Giacomo Puccini became famous all over the world for his
work and made numerous trips to assist with rehearsals and
to be present for performances of his operas in Europe and
in America: La Fanciulla del West (New York, Metropolitan
Opera, December, 1910), La Rondine (Montecarlo, March 1917),
Il Trittico (New York,
Metropolitan Opera,
December 1918). He was very close to the conductor,
Arturo Toscanini,
with whom he collaborated closely on many productions of his
work, both in Italy and the US. In 1919, he was forced to
move to Viareggio by the opening of a noisy peat factory
near his home at Torre del Lago. By 1923, he was suffering
from a debilitating throat ailment as he tried to work on
what would be his last great opera. He was quite doubtful
about the subject of his final piece before finally choosing
the play Turandotte by the Venetian playwright Carlo Gozzi.
Although he was seriously ill, Puccini worked hard on his
Turandot which unfortunately, he would not be able to
complete. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1924, and
several months later, went to Brussels for treatment. He
underwent surgery on November 24th, and died several days
later on November 29th, 1924.
Puccini so loved Torre del Lago that he made arrangements
for his remains to be interred there after his death. After
his premature passing in Brussels, he was buried at first in
Milan, then after the chapel in his beloved home had been
appropriately consecrated in 1926, he was transferred and is
now buried there alongside several other members of his
family. |
