Madama Butterfly

The failure of Puccini's Madama Butterfly at La Scala, Milan in 1904 is one of opera's most celebrated fiascos. Puccini immediately withdrew the work, made a few judicious cuts and re-writes, and a couple of months later it emerged triumphant in Brescia. Since then, it has become one of the most popular and loved works in the repertory.

Tosca

Puccini's opera Tosca (1900) was the first opera I really got to know. The first opera that I saw in the theatre was Mozart's The Magic Flute, sung in English, but it was Tosca that I watched on video and listened to on LP. And it was Tosca that really got me hooked.

I remember sitting in the circle of the Liverpool Empire Theatre to watch the production by Welsh National Opera. It was the first time I had ever experienced a live orchestra and I can still recall the shivers down the back of my neck when I first heard those opening chords. I still have the programme: 24th November, 1992. I remember that Cavaradossi's painting rolled down from the flies rather than being on an easel; I remember a bunch of plastic candles and the train of Tosca's dress getting caught on them and having to be yanked off; I remember Scarpia carrying a whip; I remember Scarpia laying cushions on the floor before he seduced Tosca. And I remember the thrill, the elation of it all, the genuine excitement of that sound of singers and an orchestra coming together to tell a dramatic story.

A Puccini playlist

Now that you are hopefully a little more familiar with Puccini and some of his major works, as well as with the names of some singers, I thought I'd put together a playlist of the main Puccini extracts, duets and arias. This is more a list to familiarise yourself with the music rather than the stories of the operas and to meet some new singers, so some performances are from concerts, some audio only, some in performance etc. Do you have a favourite track?

A word about words

The three main Puccini operas we have looked at so far (La Boheme, Tosca and Madam Butterfly) all share one important feature: the librettists.

The libretto (literally, little book) are the words of the opera and usually follow a draft scenario or synopsis (summary of the plot). The collaboration between composer and librettist is often fraught and the old argument prima la musica, poi le parole (first the music, then the words) or vice versa, has even inspired its own operas. It is important to remember that it is the composer who is the dramatist: with the music he will determine character, mood, emotion and pace. There are records of many arguments where the librettist has written beautiful poetry but that is no good to the composer's sense of drama. A good librettist needs to find words that can inspire the composer but must not be complete in themselves: the words need a composer to complete and enrich them.

La Boheme

The story of Rodolfo the poet, Marcello the painter, Schaunard the musician and Colline the philosopher. Marcello is rather more tempestuous in love, with the fiery but ultimately devoted Musetta; Rodolfo is more the dreamy romantic who falls in love with the seamstress Mimi.

I was introduced to it through a video of the Covent Garden production directed by John Copley (I've met him, but that's another story), still being revived over 30 years later, and we'll look at some clips of that production to explore some of the more familiar music.

(A synopsis can be found here: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?id=7 . A more detailed article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_boheme )

Four operas, four tenors

All the operas I'd seen so far were by the same composer, Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). His operas are pretty much cornerstones of the repertory. Tosca (premiered 1900) and Madam Butterfly (1904) are still performed in opera houses around the world. He began to make his name with his third opera, Manon Lescaut (1893), but it was his fourth opera, La Boheme, (1896) that really cemented his reputation. (Turandot was his last opera, uncompleted when he died.)

La Boheme (Bohemian life) tells the story of four artist friends living together in a garret in Paris. Based on a novel by Henri Murger, it has itself inspired a musical, Rent, and its combination of tragedy and comedy has ensured that it is one of the most popular operas in the world. Boy meets girl: Rodolfo meets Mimi, and inevitably in opera terms, tenor meets soprano. In his aria of introduction, Che gelida manina (What a cold little hand or known more poetically as Your tiny hand is frozen), Rodolfo introduces himself to Mimi.

And here to sing it are four of our now familiar tenors: Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Giacomo Aragall.

From Tosca to Turandot and Madam Butterfly

Video of Tosca watched, it was onto the next one. A local record shop had three titles in the same series, all in productions from the Arena in Verona. All three were Puccini operas, and having enjoyed Tosca, Turandot and Madam Butterfly seemed logical progressions.

The Arena in Verona is an old Roman amphitheatre. An opera festival takes place in the summer under the stars. You can sit in designated seats in the stalls, but thousands buy a ticket for the steps and sit in unmarked places on the stone. Performances begin as it darkens (about 9pm) and can last early into the morning. As the performance time approaches, people on the steps light candles to give the whole arena a magical glow.

You can find out more about the Arena di Verona here: http://www.arena.it/en-US/HOMEen.html

From that Turandot production, here is Nicola Martinucci (with trademark facial hair) singing what was, for many, the soundtrack of 1990: Calaf's aria Nessun dorma (ignore the subtitles, and the video unfortunately cuts at the end to a slideshow of other singers)

If you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to post a comment.

Welcome to the blog!

One may as well begin with some autobiography...

I wasn't brought up on opera or classical music; I was a Motown child. But I remember classical music being played as I went in to school assemblies and from there learnt the names of Beethoven, Vivaldi and Holst.

I always liked the sound that an orchestra made and thought I might be responsive to opera. But the problem was always where to start. Who was who and what was what? Hopefully, this blog will help answer some of those questions for you.

The big breakthrough came in 1990, when The Three Tenors (Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti) gave a concert in Rome. From the concert, two arias by Puccini from his opera Tosca stood out. There was the way in. I received a video of Tosca as a Christmas present, then moved on to other Puccini operas, borrowing recordings from the library and reading the inlays for further information and guidance.