MADAME BUTTERFLY LIVRE SUR LA MUSIQUE

by Giacomo Puccini (Composer)

Puccini had hardly finished his work on 'Tosca' in 1900 and seen its first performances when a new potential opera subject attracted his attention during a theatre visit in the play staged was 'Madame Butterfly. Tragedy of a Japanese Woman'. At the beginning of 1904, the musical setting of this subject matter was completed – the work was a failure at the world premiere. Thereupon, Puccini revised it into a three-act version, and it was in this form that the opera about the unhappy Japanese woman began its triumphant progress.Apart from the Italian libretto and the common German translation, this edition contains introductory commentaries of Kurt Pahlen who also adds information on the compositional structure and context to the musical as well as external and internal dramatic action of the opera. A short synopsis and a brief outline of the genesis bring the work into relation with the composer's entire oeuvre and life, thus offering a comprehensive, richly illustrated introduction.

288 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2001

About the author

An Italian composer, son of Michele Puccini and fifth in a line of composers from Lucca. After studying music with his uncle, Fortunato Magi, and with the director of the Insituto Musicale Pacini, Carlo Angeloni, he started his career at the age of fourteen as an organist of St. Martino and St. Michele, Lucca, and at other local churches. However, a performance of Verdi's Aida at Pisa in 1876 made such an impression on him he decided to become an opera composer. With a scholarship and financial support from an uncle, he was able to enter the Milan Conservatory in 1880. During his three years there, his chief teachers were Bazzini and Ponchielli.

Punccini's best known operas are: Le villi (1884), Edgar (1889), Manon Lescaut (1893), La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), La fanciulla del West (1910), La rondine (1917), "Il trittico" and Turandot (1926).

During the composition of Turandot, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, and died after receiving treatment in Brussles. Turandot, was left unfinished, but was completed by Franco Alfano.