Page 197 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 195

See also: Orfeo ed Euridice 118–119 ■ The Barber of Seville 148 ■
Der Freischütz 149 ■ La traviata 174 ■ The Wreckers 232–239 ■
Peter Grimes 288–293

Giselle (1841). It was followed five Although Manon Lescaut was not
years later by Edgar (1889), an opera truly a “realist” work, it contained
set in a 14th-century world of two scenes in particular that sat
medieval knights. Although not squarely in the new style. In Act III,
the strictest follower of verismo, the poignant spectacle of the
Puccini, once the new style became embarkation of the prostitutes
established, took its passionate, condemned to transportation and,
heartrending, and cruel elements in Act IV, the heroine’s lengthy
and clothed them in daring music death scene in an American desert
that reached a breathtaking climax both provided a focus for some of
in the tragic opera Tosca. the most emotionally powerful Giacomo Puccini
writing in the score, delivered in
Embracing the realistic a style that epitomized the essence Born into a family of church
Puccini’s first response to verismo of musical verismo. musicians in Lucca in 1858,
was the opera Manon Lescaut Puccini’s next opera, La Bohème Puccini claimed to have
(1893), based on an 18th-century (1896), set among down-at-the-heels decided on an operatic career
French novel by the Abbé Prévost. artists and their girlfriends in after watching a performance
This had already been turned into Paris around 1830, was closer to of Verdi’s Aida in Pisa in 1876.
several operas, notably Manon the true subject matter of verismo. After studying at the Milan
(1884) by the opera specialist, Jules It also crystallized the intense Conservatory, he entered his
Massenet. He was one of a number sentiment, characterization, and one-act opera-ballet Le Villi in
of French composers whose operas craftsmanship of the musical a competition. Although it was
had been gaining ground in Italian language of verismo that was ❯❯ rejected for being illegible, it
theatres. These included Faust (1859) was staged by the publisher
Giulio Ricordi.
by Charles Gounod and Carmen Puccini’s breakthrough
(1875), the final masterpiece of Carmen talks to the smuggler came in 1893 with Manon
Le Dancaïre in a scene from Carmen
Georges Bizet, which shocked by Georges Bizet. The opera, with Lescaut, which put him at the
critics of the time with its earthy its themes of passion, jealousy, and forefront of Italian composers.
realism and amoral heroine. violence, was an influence on verismo. Thereafter, he produced his
three greatest successes—La
Bohème, Tosca, and Madama
Butterfly. His productivity
slowed in later years, but the
operas La fanciulla del West
(1910), La rondine (1917), Il
trittico (1918), and the
posthumously produced
Turandot displayed increasing
refinement. He died of a heart
attack in Brussels in 1924
following an operation for
throat cancer.

Other key works

1896 La Bohème
1904 Madama Butterfly
1918 Il trittico

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