This year, the many celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Puccini’s birth are set to include the unveiling of a new al fresco opera house on the shores of the lake where many of his masterpieces were composed. Giacomo Puccini was the most commercially successful opera composer there has ever been. At his death in 1924 he was worth well over £130m by today’s standards.
Much of this wealth came from the wonder years (1895-1904) when the Tuscan maestro turned out in rapid succession three of the most widely performed operas in the world, La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly, while living in idyllic surroundings in Torre del Lago on the shores of Lake Massaciuccoli. Then he seemed to run out of steam, not finishing his next work, La Fanciulla del West, until 1910. While accomplished, La Fanciulla isn’t in the same league as Bohème, Tosca and Butterfly. So what went wrong?
For years it was assumed that the suicide of a maid working in the Puccini household may have had a lot to do with it. The story is well-documented. On 23 January 1909, Doria Manfredi committed suicide by taking three tablets of corrosive sublimate. It took three days for her to die from what today we would call mercury poisoning. Elvira Bonturi, the composer’s 39-year-old wife, was blamed for her death, for she had hounded Doria and publicly accused her of having an affair with Puccini. When the local court ordered an autopsy, it was found that Doria was a virgin and Elvira was sued for slander. She was sentenced to five months and five days and only escaped prison when the composer offered 12,000 lire compensation to the Manfredi family. Subsequently the couple were estranged for some months, but this tragedy hardly accounts for the seven years it took Puccini to complete La Fanciulla. Besides, Elvira’s persecution of Doria only began in the October of 1908. The dates simply do not match up.
Recently, fresh light has been shed on what went on in Villa Puccini 100 years ago. Giacomo Puccini had made his home in a fishing village called Torre del Lago. Here, surrounded by his common-law wife, his stepdaughter and son, he wrote music, went out in fast cars, or took his speedboat out on the lake. Or as he himself put it: “I am a mighty hunter of wild fowl, operatic librettos and attractive women.” … more>>
06/07/2008...9:58 pm
Scandalissimo! Puccini’s sex life laid bare
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