Puccini, Giacomo

Puccini Without Excuses: A Refreshing Reassessment of the World's Most Popular Composer

Puccini is the most beloved composer of opera in the world: one quarter of all opera performances in the U.S. are of his operas, his music pervades movie soundtracks, and his plots have infiltrated our popular culture. But, although Puccini’s art still captivates audiences and the popularity of such works as Tosca, La Boh?me, and Madama Butterfly has never waned, he has long been a victim of critical snobbery and cultural marginalization.
In this witty and informative guide for beginners and fans alike, William Berger sets the record straight, reclaiming Puccini as a serious artist. Combining his trademark irreverent humor with passionate enthusiasm, Berger strikes just the right balance of introductory information and thought-provoking analysis. He includes a biography, discussions of each opera, a glossary, fun facts and anecdotes, and above all keen insight into Puccini’s enduring power. For anyone who loves Puccini and for anyone who just wonders what all the fuss is about, Puccini Without Excuses is funny, challenging, and always a pleasure to read.

INCLUDES:
_ Why Puccini’s art and its message of hope is crucial to our world today
_ How Anglo audiences often miss the mythic significance of his operas
_ The use of his music as shorthand in films, from A Room with a View to Fatal Attraction
_ A scene-by scene analysis of each opera
_ A guide to the wealth of available recordings, books, and videos

Madama Butterfly w/audio cd

The Black Dog Opera Library is one of the most popular, informative, and budget-friendly ways to enjoy all the great operas. Each book in the series includes a history of the opera, a synopsis of the story, a complete libretto in its original language as well as in English, and dozens of photographs and drawings depicting great scenes, singers, performances, and more. Each book also includes an excellent Angel/EMI recording of the entire opera on two CDs, as well as commentary from experts in the field who guide you through the music as you listen. All of this for less than twenty dollars!

Puccini: A Biography

Descended from four generations of distinguished composers and organists, Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) was driven by family tradition and an ambitious mother to pursue a career that brought him worldwide recognition as the greatest composer of Italian opera after Giuseppe Verdi. But behind the brilliant creator of such lasting works as La Bohéme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La Fanciulla del West, La Rondine, and Turandot, there was a person racked with indecision, self-doubt, bouts of depression, and private misfortunes.

In this beautifully written work, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz brings to life both the man and his circle. Setting Puccini's intriguing story within the worlds of his beloved Tuscany and the cutthroat opera business, the author follows the composer from boyhood in his ancestral Lucca, to his struggling student years at the Milan Conservatory, to his early successes and failures, to the artistic triumphs that earned him international celebrity and considerable wealth. Filled with colorful details and anecdotes drawn from extensive primary sources as well as interviews with descendents, family friends, and colleagues, the book chronicles Puccini's personal sorrows and scandals, and recounts his stormy professional rivalries and associations in England, Europe, and the United States. Phillips-Matz also skillfully untangles the threads of the gifted artist's complex and contradictory character. She reveals a sophisticated composer who often drew upon exotic thematic material and an elegant cosmopolite who loved his several villas, expensive cars, boats, and fine clothes. Yet Puccini remained passionately wedded to the simple life of the Tuscan countryside of his youth. This is the place the Maestro returned to in times of turmoil to share the communal joys of hunting and playing cards with his neighbors.

This masterful biography provides the most full, authentic, and revealing portrait to date of this major operatic composer.

Turandot (Opera Classics Library Series)

A comprehensive guide to Puccini's TURANDOT, featuring an insightful Commentary and Analysis, Story Narrative with over 13 music highlight examples, a complete LIBRETTO (newly translated), a Discography, Videography, Dictionary of Opera and Musical Terms.

Tosca (Guide to Understanding and Appreciating Opera)

The Black Dog Opera Library is the most popular, informative, and budget-friendly way to enjoy the greatest operas of all time. Each book contains a history of the opera, a synopsis of the story, a complete libretto in its original language as well as in English, dozens of photos, and a world-class Angel/EMI recording of the entire opera on two CDs. It's a must-have for die-hard opera lovers as well as those in need of an introduction to the timeless art form.

Madame Butterfly: Japonisme, Puccini, and the Search for the Real Cho-Cho-San

Long before Puccini wrote his masterpiece, the tale of the poor Japanese girl abandoned by her foreign lover had been taken up by numerous Western writers as part of the wave of Japonisme in late-19th-century Europe. But was there a "real" Madame Butterfly? Following the tragic trail back to its roots in Nagasaki, Jan van Rij believes he's found the answer. Opera lovers will delight in the revelation, and learn not only about the cultural forces and personal fixations that inspired this popular work but why many Japanese remain unconvinced.

A long-time opera buff, Jan van Rij served as an E.U. diplomat in Japan, highly regarded for his intimate understanding of Japanese-European relations.

The Complete Operas Of Puccini (Da Capo Paperback)

The Puccini Companion

What forces helped shape the output of this high-living, often arrogant, but immensely talented composer? This fascinating collection includes Simonetta Puccini's essay full of intimate details about her family, as well as writings by experts on the racist politics behind the creation of Madama Butterfly; Puccini's fascination with American culture as exemplified in Fanciulla del West; his grappling with twentieth-century musical practices in Trittico and Turandot; and the changes that early recording technology sparked in turn-of-the-century operatic performance style.

A Vision of the Orient: Texts, Intertexts, and Contexts of Madame Butterfly

Best known as the story from the 1904 Puccini opera, the compelling modern myth of Madame Butterfly has been read, watched, and re-interpreted for over a century, from Pierre Loti’s 1887 novel Madame Chrysanthème to A.R. Gurney’s 1999 play Far East. This fascinating collaborative volume examines the Madame Butterfly narrative in a wide variety of cultural contexts – literary, musical, theatrical, cinematic, historical, and political – and in a variety of media – opera, drama, film, and prose narratives – and includes contributions from a wide range of academic disciplines, such as Asian Studies, English Literature, Theatre, Musicology, and Film Studies.

From its original colonial beginnings, the Butterfly story has been turned about and inverted in recent years to shed light back on the nature of the relationship between East and West, remaining popular in its original version as well as in retellings such as David Henry HwangÂ’s play M. Butterfly and David CronenbergÂ’s screen adaptation. The combined perspectives that result from this collaboration provide new and challenging insights into the powerful, resonant myth of a painful encounter between East and West.

Starcrossed: A Biography of Madam Butterfly (Signature Books)

Giacomo PucciniÂ’s opera Madame Butterfly has enjoyed tremendous popularity in Europe and America since its debut in 1904. It has also inspired a global-level debate about whether the tragic heroine of the opera, Cho-Cho-san, was based on a real-life model.

Starcrossed looks at this controversy and presents compelling evidence that, in fact, there was no real life Cho-Cho-san. Nonetheless, the author demonstrates that, despite the cultural disparities evoked by the opera and the clash of values embodied in it, there lie buried in the history of Nagasaki many untold tales of true international romance and cooperation.

Nagasaki, the setting for the opera, holds many of the answers to the international identity debate, however, the city has remained virtually silent in the matter, in large part, argues Burke-Gaffney, because the story of Madame Butterfly is locally viewed as a Western romance with values alien to many Japanese.

Penetrating beyond consideration of Madame Butterfly as a work of art, Starcrossed explores the literature from which the opera springs, including a wide variety of primary sources in both Japanese and Western languages. Drawing on these insights, Burke-Gaffney presents the opera as a window on JapanÂ’s changing relationship with Europe and America from the seventeenth century through the post World War II occupation.

Finally, Starcrossed looks at the sites in Nagasaki which were related to the development of Madame Butterfly and presents an engaging display of illustrations and photographs from the past hundred years.