Patrick O'Connor
Opera’s Renegades
Puccini: A Biography
By Mary Jane Phillips-Matz
Northeastern University Press 343pp $30
Edgard Varese
By Alan Clayson
Sanctuary 207pp £12.99
WHEN GIACOMO PUCCINI died in 1924, so did Italian opera. There have been dozens of Italian compsers since, of course, some of whose works have even been performed abroad - for instance, Zandonai's I cavalieri di Ekebti, Dallapiccola's II prigioniero and Rota's I1 cappello di paglia di Firenze. But these are all minor works; the great line Rossini-Bellini-Donizetti-Verdi found its only twentieth-century son in Puccini. For decades, however, his operas were held in contempt by musicologists and historians; Joseph Kerman called Tosca a 'shabby little shocker'. Only in the last thirty years has critical opinion turned around and recognised Puccini as a master of theatre and orchestra, someone who could please the public at large with works that have a good deal more to them than many would acknowledge.
In her introduction, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz writes that many of Puccini's detractors object to the 'sadism and gratuitous cruelty' in his operas. Of his best-known heroines, four commit suicide (Tosca, Butterfly, Angelica and Lih), two die in misery (Manon and Mirni), and one is witness to the murder of her lover by her jealous husband (Giorgetta). The others aren't exactly in clover either. Minnie, in La fanciulla del West, faces an uncertain
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk