“You have to cry when he wants you to and laugh when he wants you to. There’s no escape! His works are like a kind of carnivorous plant that slowly envelops you. After a while, you’re at the mercy of Puccini. There’s nothing you can do!” explains Michele Dall’Ongaro, composer, musicologist, and President of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. “The ability to dominate the emotions of the listener is one of his main characteristics. If he decides that from that moment on, you should start crying, you will. And this applies to everyone, no exceptions,” he reiterates with the passion of someone who has been conquered and deeply understands the music of Giacomo Puccini. On the hundredth anniversary of his death, at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, Dall’Ongaro pays tribute to him with a series of lectures guiding the general public in appreciating his works.
“He wasn’t the brightest student; he used to steal organ pipes and resell them to buy cigarettes and other things to share with his friends,” continues the composer recounting his beginnings. “He risked being expelled from everything, but he had great talent, a mother who helped him a lot, and an environment that believed in him.” The latter concept, the importance of which the musicologist emphasizes repeatedly: “His great fortune was to meet Giulio Ricordi on his path.” In the second half of the nineteenth century, music publishers were like today’s film producers. They competed for artists even through not entirely fair means. And Ricordi, according to some, deliberately made the young Puccini lose a competition just to secure him. If he had won, he would have entered the payroll of his rival, the publisher Edoardo Sonzogno. “Instead, Ricordi produced his first opera, Le Villi, which went well, and then Edgar, which was a failure,” explains Dall’Ongaro. “At that point, the board of directors wanted to kick the young composer out, but Ricordi continued to finance him, threatening to leave himself if the partners did not support his decision.” The resounding success of Manon Lescaut, Puccini’s third opera, would later vindicate him and mark the beginning of the artist’s stupendous career.
Never satiated with emotions, the composer from Lucca lived pursuing his passions: friendships with simple people, hunting, women – many of whom were adulterous relationships – smoking, which led him to the grave with throat cancer, and then music, in which he transferred all his intensity. He chose the subjects of his most famous works, stories full of violence, ardor, and sensuality, sometimes lurid and brutal. And he chased and pursued authors to grant him the rights to their works, as happened with the American David Belasco. “Puccini watches a tragedy about a Japanese geisha, Madama Butterfly, seduced and abandoned by an American soldier,” recounts Dall’Ongaro, “and even though he doesn’t understand a word of English, he is immediately captivated by the dramatic charge that stirs his deepest emotions. After the show, he rushes to Belasco, who later writes: ‘How can you resist an Italian in tears who puts his hands around your neck?'”
One of the secrets that made Puccini’s works so popular is the perfect interpenetration of plot, words, and music, achieved through the precious collaboration of Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, both librettists and playwrights whom Ricordi himself assigned to his protege. “The former wrote the treatment, transforming it into a subject that today we would define as cinematographic, with well-constructed acts and scenes. Giacosa instead put everything into verse,” explains the composer. Their talent for writing was combined with Puccini’s ability to create unforgettable melodies, a skill he perfected drawing inspiration from both Verdi and Wagner. Thanks to the synergy of these three minds, nicknamed by Ricordi “the holy trinity,” operas were born in which the pathetic, dramatic, and comedic elements are always mixed with exquisite skill.
In recent times, there has been a certain hostility towards Puccini in Anglo-Saxon cultural circles, considered sexist and misogynistic because he chose to stage stories in which female figures suffer terrible fates. But Dall’Ongaro is clear on this matter: “I think we must be very cautious in tampering with the classics. It doesn’t seem to me that it helps us understand the past, comprehend the present, or organize the future. Puccini was a man of his time, a chauvinist and a womanizer. However, this should not influence our view of the artist within him.” And regarding the characters he portrays, he specifies: “He gives space to a new type of woman that hadn’t yet been told in theater: strong, decisive, doing what she wants and managing to be master of her own destiny.” Think of Minnie, the protagonist of La Fanciulla del West, the only woman to run a saloon, surrounded by 80 ruffians whom she always has in her grip; of Tosca, who resists Scarpia’s violence and kills him to save her beloved, or of Madama Butterfly, who decides to commit suicide by her own choice and not to sacrifice herself, not to mention Turandot, who kills men before they can approach her. “Therefore, we must be cautious in labeling Puccini’s theater, which is actually very complex,” concludes Dall’Ongaro.
A tireless worker, uncompromising and ambitious, Puccini kept himself updated on new musical trends, especially in the last part of his life, where he experimented a lot. After achieving worldwide fame, he was terrified of being overshadowed by new talents. However, his legacy has been embraced by many of his successors, from Stravinsky to Nino Rota, and even today, his works touch the souls and hearts of millions of people. “All culture has been imbued with Puccini, high, low, and in every corner of the world,” says Dall’Ongaro. “We are all Puccini enthusiasts, even without knowing it.”
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