Giacomo Puccini: The Man and His Operas
“Puccini was incredibly demanding of his librettists, most of whom walked out on him, always to return …”
Part 1 — Origins
“There was no escaping music…”
Puccini was incredibly demanding of his librettists, most of whom walked out on him (always to return), he always managed to create some of the most beautiful operas ever heard and seen, because, as Benjamin Britten said (when asked about writing his opera Peter Grimes) Puccini knew how long it took for a character to walk across a stage, and how much music that would need, and how few words, reminding everyone that opera is a ‘work’, a drama. For Britten, Giacomo Puccini was the master, the maestro when it came to putting words and music together: of creating great passion that can pierce the hearts of an audience, time and time again.
Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his second opera, The Pilgrims Progress (which he described as a ‘Morality’) in 1936, which has often been criticised as static, in comparison to Puccini’s work, but which, nevertheless, has shown itself to be a great opera, containing many ‘modernistic’ aspects that Puccini first tried out with The Girl from the Golden West in 1910. Both Vaughan Williams and Ben Britten were undoubtedly influenced by that amazing opera.
