Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of one of her closest friends,Tina Picotes.
Tina loves opera and thay have been talking about Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly, the opera that received its première at La Scala in Milan on a day like today in 1904.
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italianlibretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
It is based on the short story MadameButterfly(1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel MadameChrysanthème by Pierre Loti. Long's version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan, which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year.
The original version of the opera, in two acts, had its premiere on 17 February 1904 at La Scala in Milan.
It was poorly received, despite having such notable singers as soprano Rosina Storchio, tenor Giovanni Zenatello and baritone Giuseppe De Luca in lead roles. This was due in part to a late completion by Puccini, which gave inadequate time for rehearsals. Puccini revised the opera, splitting the second act in two, with the Humming Chorus as a bridge to what became Act III, and making other changes. Success ensued, starting with the first performance on 28 May 1904 in Brescia.
Puccini wrote five versions of the opera. The original two-act version, which was presented at the world premiere at La Scala on 17 February 1904, was withdrawn after the disastrous premiere.
Puccini then substantially rewrote it, this time in three acts. This second version was performed on 28 May 1904 in Brescia, where it was a great success, with Solomiya Krushelnytska as Cio-Cio-san.
It was this second version that premiered in the United States in 1906, first in Washington, D.C., in October, and then in New York in November, performed by Henry Savage's New English Opera Company, so named because it performed in English-language translations.
In 1906, Puccini wrote a third version, which was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1907, Puccini made several changes in the orchestral and vocal scores, and this became the fourth version, which was performed in Paris.
In 1907, Puccini made his final revisions to the opera in a fifth version, which has become known as the Standard Version and is the one which is most often performed around the world. However, the original 1904 version is occasionally performed, such as for the opening of La Scala's season on 7 December 2016, with Riccardo Chailly conducting.
Premieres of the standard version in major opera houses throughout the world include those in the Teatro de la Opera de Buenos Aires on 2 July 1904, under Arturo Toscanini, this being the first performance in the world outside Italy. Its first performance in Britain was in London on 10 July 1905 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, while the first US performance was presented in English on 15 October 1906, in Washington, D.C., at the Columbia Theater.
The first performance in New York took place on 12 November of the same year at the Garden Theatre. The Metropolitan Opera first performed the work on 11 February 1907 in the presence of the composer with Geraldine Farrar as Cio-Cio San, Enrico Caruso as Pinkerton, Louise Homer as Suzuki, Antonio Scotti as Sharpless, and Arturo Vigna conducting.
Three years later, the first Australian performance was presented at the Theatre Royal in Sydney on 26 March 1910, starring Amy Eliza Castles.
Between 1915 and 1920, Japan's best-known opera singer Tamaki Miura won international fame for her performances as Cio-Cio-san. A memorial to this singer, along with one to Puccini, can be found in the Glover Garden in the port city of Nagasaki, where the opera is set.
Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of one of her closest friends, Tina Picotes. Tina loves opera, and they have been talking about La bohème, the opera composed by Giacomo Puccini that was premiered on a
day like today in 1896.
La bohème is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and GiuseppeGiacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème (1851) by Henri Murger.
The story is set in Paris around 1830, and shows the Bohemian lifestyle, known in French as la bohème, of a poor seamstress and her artist friends.
The world premiere of La bohème was in Turin on 1 February 1896 at the Teatro Regio, conducted by the 28-year-old Arturo Toscanini. Since then, La bohème has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas worldwide.
In 1946, fifty years after the opera's premiere, Toscanini conducted a commemorative performance of it on radio with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. A recording of the performance was later released by RCA Victor on vinyl record, tape and Compact Disc. It is the only recording ever made of a Puccini opera by its original conductor.
As credited on its title page, the libretto of La bohème is based on HenriMurger's 1851 novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème, a collection of vignettes portraying young bohemians living in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s. Although often called a novel, the book has no unified plot.
Like the 1849 play drawn from the
book by Murger and Théodore Barrière, the opera's libretto focuses on
the relationship between Rodolfo and Mimì, ending with her death. Also
like the play, the libretto combines two characters from the novel, Mimì
and Francine, into the single character of Mimì.
Early in the composition stage Puccini was in dispute with the composer Ruggero Leoncavallo, who said that he had offered Puccini a completed libretto and felt that Puccini should defer to him. Puccini responded that he had had no idea of Leoncavallo's interest and that having been working on his own version for some time, he felt that he could not oblige him by discontinuing with the opera. Leoncavallo completed his own version, in which Marcello was sung by a tenor and Rodolfo by a baritone. It was unsuccessful and is now rarely performed.
Much of the libretto is original. Major sections of acts two and three are the librettists' invention, with only a few passing references to incidents and characters in Murger. Most of the acts one and four follow the book, piecing together episodes from various chapters. The final scenes in acts one and four -the scenes with Rodolfo and Mimì- resemble both the play and the book. The story of their meeting closely follows chapter 18 of the book, in which the two lovers living in the garret are not Rodolphe and Mimì at all, but rather Jacques and Francine. The story of Mimì's death in the opera draws from two different chapters in the book, one relating Francine's death and the other relating Mimì's.
The published libretto includes a note from the librettists briefly discussing their adaptation. Without mentioning the play directly, they defend their conflation of Francine and Mimì into a single character: Chi può non confondere nel delicato profilo di una sola donna quelli di Mimì e di Francine?, Who cannot confuse in the delicate profile of one woman the personality both of Mimì and of Francine?. At the time, the book was in the public domain, Murger having died without heirs, but rights to the play were still controlled by Barrière's heirs.
Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has received the visit of her closer friend Tina Picotes who is a great fan of opera. They have been talking about this musical genre and they have been listening to a great masterpiece, Tosca, the opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini that was premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on a day like today in 1900.
Many great tenors and sopranos have sung this wonderful opera but The Grandma and Tina have their own preferences. TheGrandma loves Errico Caruso and Tina likes LucianoPavarotti. Both of them love Maria Callas.
The Grandma has remembered another closer friend. Ana Maria Bean, a great fan of MariaCallas, who shared her knowledge about the American diva with The Grandma and TheBeans some years ago.
Tina and The Grandma have been remembering last time they went to the theatre together to enjoy Tosca. It was last June in the Teatre Liceu in Barcelona in a special day when this opera was offered free by TV to hundreds of Catalan cities and towns that installed giant screens to allow to their citizens to follow this opera in an event called Liceu a la Fresca.
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias.
Puccini saw Sardou's play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, obtained the rights to turn the work into an opera in 1895. Turning the wordy French play into a succinct Italian opera took four years, during which the composer repeatedly argued with his librettists and publisher. Toscapremiered at a time of unrest in Rome, and its first performance was delayed for a day for fear of disturbances. Despite indifferent reviews from the critics, the opera was an immediate success with the public.
Giacomo Puccini
Musically, Tosca
is structured as a through-composed work, with arias, recitative,
choruses and other elements musically woven into a seamless whole. Puccini used Wagnerian leitmotifs to identify characters, objectsand ideas. While critics have often
dismissed the opera as a facile melodrama with confusions of plot
-musicologist Joseph Kerman famously called it a shabby little
shocker- the power of its score and the inventiveness of its
orchestration have been widely acknowledged.
The dramatic force of Tosca and its characters continues to fascinate both performers and audiences, and the work remains one of the most frequently performed operas. Many recordings of the work have been issued, both of studio and live performances.
The French playwright Victorien Sardou wrote more than 70 plays, almost all of them successful, and none of them performed today. In the early 1880s Sardou began a collaboration with actress Sarah Bernhardt, whom he provided with a series of historical melodramas. His third Bernhardt play, La Tosca,whichpremiered in Paris on 24 November 1887, and in which she starred throughout Europe, was an outstanding success, with more than 3,000 performances in France alone.
Puccini had seen La Tosca at least twice, in Milan and Turin. On 7 May 1889 he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou'spermission for the work to be made into an opera: I see in this Tosca the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music.
Ricordi sent his agent
in Paris, Emanuele Muzio, to negotiate with Sardou, who preferred that
his play be adapted by a French composer. He complained about the
reception La Tosca had received in Italy, particularly in Milan, and
warned that other composers were interested in the piece. Nonetheless,
Ricordi reached terms with Sardou and assigned the librettist Luigi
Illica to write a scenario for an adaptation.
In 1891, Illica advised
Puccini against the project, most likely because he felt the play could
not be successfully adapted to a musical form. When Sardou expressed his
unease at entrusting his most successful work to a relatively new
composer whose music he did not like, Puccini took offence. He withdrew
from the agreement, which Ricordi then assigned to the composer Alberto
Franchetti. Illica wrote a libretto for Franchetti, who was never at ease with the assignment.
When
Puccini once again became interested in Tosca, Ricordi was able to get
Franchetti to surrender the rights so he could recommission Puccini. One
story relates that Ricordi convinced Franchetti that the work was too
violent to be successfully staged.
Tosca, Teatre Liceu, Barcelona (2019)
A Franchetti family
tradition holds that Franchetti gave the work back as a grand gesture,
saying, He has more talent than I do.Whatever the reason,
Franchetti surrendered the rights in May 1895, and in August Puccini
signed a contract to resume control of the project.
According to the libretto, the action of Tosca occurs in Rome in June 1800. Sardou, in his play, dates it more precisely; La Tosca takes place in the afternoon, evening, and early morning of 17 and 18 June 1800.
Italy had long been divided into a number of small states, with the Pope in Rome ruling the Papal States in Central Italy.
Following the French Revolution, a French army under Napoleon invaded Italy in 1796, entering Rome almost unopposed on 11 February 1798 and establishing a republic there. Pope Pius VI was taken prisoner, and was sent into exile on February 20, 1798. Pius VI would die in exile in 1799, and his successor, Pius VII, who was elected in Venice on 14 March 1800, would not enter Rome until July 3. There is thus neither a Pope nor papal government in Rome during the days depicted in the opera. The new republic was ruled by seven consuls; in the opera this is the office formerly held by Angelotti, whose character may be based on the real-life consul Liborio Angelucci.
In September 1799 the French, who had protected the republic, withdrew from Rome. As they left, troops of the Kingdom of Naples occupied the city.
In May 1800 Napoleon, by
then the undisputed leader of France, brought his troops across the
Alps to Italy once again. On 14 June his army met the Austrian forces at
the Battle of Marengo, near Alessandria. Austrian troops were initially
successful; by mid-morning they were in control of the field of battle.
Their commander, Michael von Melas, sent this news south towards Rome.
However, fresh French troops arrived in late afternoon, and Napoleon
attacked the tired Austrians. As Melas retreated in disarray with the
remains of his army, he sent a second courier south with the revised
message.
The Neapolitans abandoned Rome, and the city spent the next
fourteen years under French domination.
By December 1899, Tosca
was in rehearsal at the Teatro Costanzi. Because of the Roman setting,
Ricordi arranged a Roman premiere for the opera, even though this meant
that Arturo Toscanini could not conduct it as Puccini had hoped
-Toscanini was fully engaged at La Scala in Milan.
Leopoldo Mugnone was appointed to conduct. The accomplished, but temperamental, soprano Hariclea Darclée was selected for the title role; Eugenio Giraldoni, whose father had originated many Verdi roles, became the first Scarpia.
Tosca & Maria Callas, 1964
The young Errico Caruso had hoped to create Cavaradossi, but was passed over in favour of the more experienced Emilio De Marchi. The performance was to be directed by Nino Vignuzzi, with stage designs by Adolfo Hohenstein.
At the time of the premiere, Italy had experienced political and social unrest for several years. The start of the Holy Year in December 1899 attracted the religious to the city, but also brought threats from anarchists and other anticlericals. Police received warnings of an anarchist bombing of the theatre, and instructed Mugnone, who had survived a theatre bombing in Barcelona, that in an emergency he was to strike up the royal march. The unrest caused the premiere to be postponed by one day, to 14 January.
By January, 14 1900, the premiere of a Puccini opera was a national event. Many Roman dignitaries attended, as did Queen Margherita, though she arrived late, after the first act. The Prime Minister of Italy, Luigi Pelloux was present, with several members of his cabinet. A number of Puccini's operatic rivals were there, including Franchetti, Pietro Mascagni, Francesco Cilea and Ildebrando Pizzetti.
Shortly after the curtain was raised there was a disturbance in the back of the theatre, caused by latecomers attempting to enter the auditorium, and a shout of Bring down the curtain!, at which Mugnone stopped the orchestra. A few moments later the opera began again, and proceeded without further disruption.
The performance, while not quite the triumph that Puccini had hoped for, was generally successful, with numerous encores. Much of the critical and press reaction was lukewarm, often blaming Illica's libretto. In response, Illica condemned Puccini for treating his librettists like stagehands and reducing the text to a shadow of its original form. Nevertheless, any public doubts about Tosca soon vanished; the premiere was followed by twenty performances, all given to packed houses.
