Puccini festival in Łódz

One hundred years ago Giacomo Puccini, one of the much-loved opera creator. The Grand Theatre in Łódź is launching the 15 November Puccini Festival with the performance of ‘Madama Butterfly’. Puccini was a representative of so-called verismo, a realistic trend in Italian opera. His works are extremely tuneful and hugely emotional. The arias are short but very intense, one only needs to recall those from ‘Tosca’, ‘Madama Butterfly’ or ‘Turandot’. In the latter two works, he was inspired by the music of the Far East - Japan and China. Stylistically, although rooted in Romanticism, over time he moved closer to the achievements of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, and even to Impressionism.

Associated for most of his life with Tuscany, the composer was born and grew up in Lucca in a musical family, or even, one could say, a dynasty - his great-great-grandfather of the same name was already a musician. But although his ancestors were rather organists and composers of religious works, Giacomo, although he too became an organist, was fascinated by opera from the start. So he went to Milan to study for three years with the esteemed opera author Amilchare Ponchielli. His first opera of his own, ‘Le Villi’, although not a great success, caught the attention of the publisher Giulio Ricordi, who commissioned another from him. However, ‘Edgar’ was also unsuccessful. Puccini did not relent and the next commission from Ricordi, ‘Manon Lescaut’, was already being realised back in his home country: he settled in Torre del Lago near Lucca. When the success following the premiere of this work became a reality, and ‘La Bohème’, written three years later and portraying the poor Parisian bohemia, brought him worldwide fame, he built a villa there on Lake Massaciuccoli.

He loved working there and the beautiful landscape inspired him. Today, the village is called Torre del Lago Puccini, and not far from the villa, which is accessible to the public, his operas can be seen in the specially built lakeside amphitheatre as part of the annual summer festival. The composer is now buried there in the villa's chapel, which was taken care of a few years after his death in Brussels (following unsuccessful treatment for cancer) by his son Antonio, who now lies there himself, as well as his mother Elvira, the composer's wife. There were numerous scandals associated with this family: romances (Elvira was married when she met Giacomo) and jealousies, quite like in Puccini's operas, some of which, incidentally, were influenced by these events. The innocent maid accused by Elvira of having an affair with Giacomo, who eventually committed suicide, became the prototype of the loving maid Liu from ‘Turandot’.

Puccini was a representative of so-called verismo, a realistic trend in Italian opera. His works are extremely tuneful and hugely emotional. The arias are short but very intense, one only needs to recall those from ‘Tosca’, ‘Madama Butterfly’ or ‘Turandot’. In the latter two works, he was inspired by the music of the Far East - Japan and China. Stylistically, although rooted in Romanticism, over time he moved closer to the achievements of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, and even to Impressionism.

It is difficult to imagine an opera theatre today that would not play his works. The permanent repertoire of the Grand Theatre in Lodz includes ‘Madama Butterfly’, ‘The Girl from the Wild West’ and ‘Turandot’. The fourth to join on 7 December will be ‘La Bohème’, prepared especially for this festival under the baton of the Lodz opera's music director Rafal Janiak.