Following the disastrous premiere of Madama Butterfly in 1904, Giacomo Puccini faced a severe creative and personal crisis. Bruised by failure and an awful car accident, the great composer struggled to find his next operatic subject. Yet, what followed was an unprecedented era of transatlantic fame, technological innovation, and an ever-evolving musical landscape. From massive international tours and the early days of the gramophone to the global disruption of the First World War, Puccini’s later life was as dramatic as any of his operas.

In this episode of Lives in Song, host Flora Willson welcomes back opera historian and Puccini specialist Dr. Ditlev Rindom. Together, they explore how Puccini navigated the “autumn of Italian opera,” adapting his style and collaborating with new librettists to produce later masterpieces like La Fanciulla del West, Il Trittico, and La Rondine. We also examine the heartbreaking final days of Puccini's life, tracing his struggles to complete his grandest project, Turandot, while battling an undiagnosed fatal illness.

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"He really knew how to create drama for an audience and how to hold you captive, how to manipulate you even, and then how to chuck you out the other end feeling absolutely overwhelmed." — Flora Willson

Chapters:

• 00:00 - Introduction: Puccini after Madama Butterfly
• 03:08 - Global Ambitions: La fanciulla del West at the Metropolitan Opera New York
• 06:01 - Transatlantic Fame in North and South America
• 08:16 - Puccini, Caruso and the gramophone era
• 13:13 - A Creative Crisis: the death of librettist Giuseppe Giacosa
• 17:18 - Mascagni's Lodoletta and Puccini’s discarded work
• 22:47 - Viennese Operetta: La Rondine and the Great War
• 28:29 - The Autumn of Italian Opera and the Late Verismo Movement
• 32:26 - The lure of one-act opera: Leoncavallo's Zingari
• 36:40 - Il Trittico and the European Trend of Short Operas
• 40:41 - The Grandeur of Turandot and Puccini's Final Struggle
• 49:11 - Ask Opera Rara: Puccini's Legacy in the Theatre

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Credits

Lives in Song is produced for Opera Rara by Creative Kin. To find out more visit creativekin.co.uk/song

Host: Flora Willson

Executive Producer: Zachary Vanderburg

Producer: Jason Caffrey

Videographer: Abdul Salifu

Audio Engineer: Phoebe Murdoch