Giacomo Puccini

A Guide to Research

Linda B. Fairtile

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135592417
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Scholarly recognition of Giacomo Puccini's achievements as a musical dramatist has been growing steadily for more than 75 years. This useful volume surveys and evaluates close to 700 books and articles about the composer, written in English, Italian, German, French and Spanish. Additional features include an essay on the evolution of Puccini studies, an annotated discography/videography, a guide to manuscript materials, and a list of organizations devoted to Puccini.
This useful volume surveys and evaluates close to 700 books and articles about the composer, written in English, Italian, German, French and Spanish. Additional features include an essay on the evolution of Puccini studies, an annotated discography/videography, a guide to manuscript materials, and a list of organizations devoted to Puccini.

I. Surveys of Life and Works

Initially, surveys of Puccini’s life and works tended to reflect the nationalities of their authors: while Italians debated his proper place in their culture’s history, non-Italians introduced their readers to his “foreign” temperament and aesthetic. After the publication of Carner’s landmark study (item 10), Puccini’s psychological makeup became an accepted key to the understanding of his music. Scholarly works that build on Carner’s foundation include the biographically strong study by Casini (item 19) and Girardi’s more comprehensive second survey (item 30). Musco’s volume (item 26), while offering exhaustive detail, is uneven in terms of reliability. Among the popular guides, Ashbrook’s (item 14) and Osborne’s (item 20) offer unique perspectives on Puccini’s music and drama, respectively. The following entries are listed chronologically.

1. Weissmann, Adolf. Giacomo Puccini. Zeitgenössische Komponisten, 11. Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1922. 93p.

Weismann’s biography is sketchy and he characterizes Puccini’s operas as weak and neurasthenic. Knowing that the composer has been heavily criticized in Italy, Weissmann attempts to present a positive picture, but he pulls so many punches that his aesthetic pronouncements have little meaning. Puccini’s drama and character types are discussed in detail, both on their own merit and as they compare to Richard Wagner’s, but his music gets little attention. Portrait.

2. Monaldi, Gino. Giacomo Puccini e la sua opera. Rome: Libreria Editrice Mantegazza, [1923]. 114p.

LC: ML410.P89 M6

This volume, one of the earliest surveys of Puccini’s life and work, offers a surprisingly perceptive consideration of his musico-dramatic aesthetic. After a brief look at Wagner’s influence on Italian opera in the 1860s and 70s, Monaldi presents a sketchy portrayal of Puccini’s life through early 1923. The author’s conclusions are sometimes strikingly original: for example, he believes that of Puccini’s two principal teachers at the Milan Conservatory, Antonio Bazzini had a greater influence on the young composer than Amilcare Ponchielli.

3. Specht, Richard. Giacomo Puccini: das Leben, der Mensch, das Werk. Berlin: M. Hesses Verlag, 1931. 230p. Reprinted, in Catherine Alison Phillips’ English translation, as Giacomo Puccini: The Man, His Life. His Work, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1933. 256p. reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970.

LC: ML410.P89 S61

Excerpt reprinted, as “Melodia amorosa—Zur Musik in Puccinis La bohème” in Giacomo Puccini. ‘La bohème.’ Texte, Materialen, Kommentare, edited by Attila Csampai and Dietmar Holland. Rororo Opernbücher (Munich: Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 1981, 251–261).

LC: ML50.P965.B64 1981

ISBN: 3-4991-7405-7

The first important non-Italian survey of Puccini’s life and work, this well-meaning volume repeats many inaccuracies found in the biographies by Adami (items 52 and 57) and Fraccaroli (items 40 and 45). Specht’s portrayal of the composer as an overgrown child underestimates both Puccini’s personality and his working method. The author’s musical insights, although colored by his ardent Wagnerism, are basically sound, but his condescending characterization of the Italian temperament undermines his discussion of Puccini’s dramaturgy. Illustrations and autograph facsimiles (score pages from Capriccio sinfonico and La bohème, sketches from Gianni Schicchi and Turandot).

4. Knosp, Gaston. G. Puccini. Brussels: Schott, 1937. 238p.

LC: ML410.P89 K72

Knosp combines familiar anecdotes from the biographies of Adami (items 52 and 57), Fraccaroli (items 40 and 45), and Pagni and Marotti (item 49) with lesser known topics such as Puccini’s residence in Boscolungo Abetone. Similarly, his discussion of the operas blends conventional accounts of genesis and reception with an examination of musical source material for La bohème (music examples are presented in solfège syllables) and criticism of the analytical work of Weissmann (item 1) and Coeuroy (item 280). The final chapter describes a solemn commemoration of Puccini’s death, held in Brussels in 1936. Portraits, illustrations, autograph facsimiles (Turandot score and sketch), slightly inaccurate list of world premieres.

5. Mariani, Renato. Giacomo Puccini. I maestri della musica, 4. Turin: Edizioni Arione Torino, [1938]. 53p.

LC: ML410.P89 M27

A biographical sketch with relatively few errors and a clever assessment of Puccini’s musical development are highlights of this survey. Mariani, who obviously favors the less popular La fanciulla del West, finds a superficiality of sentiment in Puccini’s most successful operas, La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. He answers Fausto Torrefranca’s charge of “internationalism” (see item 607) and concludes, somewhat defensively, that critics have never given Puccini his due. Portraits, illustrations, autograph facsimiles (score pages from the Capriccio sinfonico and Gianni Schicchi).

6. Marek, George. Puccini. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951. 412p.

LC: ML410.P89 M323

This is the first comprehensive English-language profile of Puccini and his music, and it is still the sole published source for some of his letters. Although Marek avoids many of the pitfalls of earlier biographers and provides new insight into Puccini’s marriage, he glosses over important details about the composer’s working method. Marek’s musical commentary is vague and impressionistic and he tends to slight those operas that are not among his favorites. Illustrations and autograph facsimiles (score pages from Tosca and Madama Butterfly). Note: the Puccini manuscripts that Marek reports seeing at the New York Public Library were returned to the composer’s heirs in the early 1950s.

7. Baresel, Alfred. Giacomo Puccini: Leben und Werk. Kleine Musikbücherei, Band 8. Hamburg: H. Sikorski, 1954. 78p.

LC: ML410.P89 B3

Baresel combines an unremarkable biographical sketch with brief descriptions of each opera, as he self-consciously introduces German readers to the Italian musico-dramatic aesthetic. Portraits, illustrations, music examples, work list, bibliography.

8. Terenzio, Vincenzo. Ritratto di Puccini. Bergamo: Stamperia Conti, 1954. 70p.

After a brief biographical sketch, this work gives way to an examination of Puccini’s music and dramaturgy. Dispensing with a chronological framework, Terenzio discusses numerous large- and small-scale similarities among various Puccini operas. Many conventional assumptions about the composer—that he was an exponent of verismo, that his musical gift was primarily for melody, that he possessed a “feminine” sensibility—are challenged. While the book’s almost stream-of-consciousness approach gives little sense of Puccini’s artistic development, it engenders several thought-provoking discussions concerning his dramatic aesthetic. Work list (incomplete) and music examples.

9. Seifert, Wolfgang. Giacomo Puccini. Musikbücherei für Jedermann, 14. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1957. 120p.

This volume combines an error-prone biography and a largely superficial musical study with above-average supporting materials, including a chapter on the musical and cultural contexts for Puccini’s works and a summary of early German Puccini criticism. Music examples.

10. Carner, Mosco. Puccini: A Critical Biography. London: Duckworth, 1958. 500p. reprint, New York: Knopf, 1959; enlarged reprint, London: Duckworth, 1974. ISBN: 07–1560–795–2; reprint, New York: Holmes & Meier, 1977. ISBN: 08–4190–302–6; revised reprint, New York: Holmes & Meier, 1992. ISBN: 08–4191–326–9

LC: ML410.P89 C3

This definitive survey of Puccini’s life and works is divided into three sections. The first, subtitled “The Man,” offers a well researched biography that gives a clearer picture of Puccini’s youth than any previous study. Carner’s portrayal of the composer is more comprehensive than Marek’s (item 6) and more objective than either Specht’s (item 3) or the early Italian biographers’. The volume’s second section, “The Artist,” is its weakest. Here Carner combines a less than enthusiastic examination of stylistic issues with an unabashedly Freudian interpretation of the composer’s artistic personality, blaming an alleged mother-fixation for the fates of each of Puccini’s heroines. The third section, subtitled “The Work,” is a thoughtful examination of the music and drama of each of Puccini’s operas, as well as several of his non-operatic compositions. Portraits, illustrations, music examples, autograph facsimiles (score pages from Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, and Tosca; sketch of Turandot).

11. Greenfield, Edward. Puccini: Keeper of the Seal. London: Arrow Books, 1958. 256p.

LC: ML410.P89 G74

While this book’s biographical section includes several inaccuracies, and its analysis of Puccini’s character is harsh and unforgiving, Greenfield does make some keen general observations about the composer’s life. The discussion of Puccini’s music offers interesting, if sometimes forced observations on dramaturgy, operatic manifestations of symphonic forms, and compositional style. An appendix offers an incomplete and inaccurate work list; another reprints the author’s 1957 essay, “A ‘Lost’ Puccini Aria.” Portraits and music examples.

12. Sartori, Claudio. Puccini. Le vite dei musicisti. Milan: Nuova Accademia, 1958. 404p.

LC: ML410.P89 S25

This important work, which deserves an English translation, complements Carner’s survey (item 10). For the most part Sartori avoids technical discussions of Puccini’s music in favor of a penetrating consideration of his mind and soul. The tone is essentially pessimistic—Puccini was a man of the 19th century whose 20th-century operas reflect his discomfort with modern living—but Sartori’s portrayal is sympathetic. He begins with ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Puccini and Puccini Studies: An Introduction
• An Annotated Bibliography of Puccini Studies
• Appendices
• Index