Verdi vs. Puccini?
MIFrost
assume Puccini had great respect for Verdi but was the feeling mutual? Did
Verdi ever feel "threatened" by Puccini's popularity? Did he ever try to
show he could copy Puccini just to show he could if he wanted to? Was Verdi
the "old guard" and Puccini the "young turk," so to speak? Did they ever
meet? Was there a rivalry? Just wondering.
MIFrost
Rugby
Regards, Rugby
Paul Ilechko
> Same inquiry re : Puccini and Rachmaninoff.
Why should there be here, they worked in different genres.
number_six
Using the index in Norman Lebrecht's book of musical anecdotes, it
looks like the only nexus he cites between Verdi and Puccini is a
story about the Tosca libretto (see pp. 163-164). Sorry for the
teaser -- I'll come back and give a synopsis when this tennis match is
over, unless another poster has already done so...
Andrew T. Kay
premiered in 1893, the same year as Puccini's first real success.
MANON LESCAUT. LE VILLI and EDGAR were politely received, more so than
one might think based on their poor reputations today, but they were
hardly the sort of thing -- either in musical merit or in critical
reception -- to have the mature Verdi of the final four operas and the
Requiem looking over his shoulder. By 1884 (when Puccini's first opera
was performed), Verdi was much more than Italy's most important opera
composer; he was regarded as a precious national resource, and had a
well-earned Olympian detachment where would-be successors were
concerned. This was even more the case after his retirement. (Keep in
mind he only lived for eight years after FALSTAFF's premiere; he could
never have heard BUTTERFLY or anything thereafter.)
Verdi was complimentary toward the young Puccini (and toward
Ponchielli); he looked over the score of EDGAR and made note of "sound
theatrical instincts." There may be more on the record about other
operas. I don't know if the two met or even corresponded; I have no
memory of reading about it, if they did. Verdi actually declined to
set TOSCA to music himself (the play was quite the hot item, and it
was obvious that someone was going to). He thought it was intriguing
and "stage-worthy," but he would not be lured out of retirement again
after FALSTAFF.
One younger Italian composer who *did* have an "old guard/young turk"
dynamic with Verdi was Arrigo Boito, composer of that fascinating mess
MEFISTOFELE Of course, relations between Verdi and Boito would
subsequently warm to a point where they would collaborate on the
revision of BOCCANEGRA and on Verdi's last two operas...a happy
outcome for us all.
Todd K
number_six
--
It seems that the Tosca libretto was originally written for another
composer (Franchetti), not for Puccini. But Franchetti didn't like
the libretto and Illica (the librettist) didn't want to alter it.
They went to Verdi (who was >80) to mediate.
Illica read the libretto for Verdi, and the old master liked it.
Franchetti (abashed, Lebrecht says) asked how Verdi would write the
tenor part. "My dear Franchetti, I would simply make some music -- a
little music, that's all" Verdi replied.
Now Puccini -- hearing how much Verdi liked the libretto -- became
"covetous" and forced Ricordi (who held the contract) to break the
agreement with Franchetti and allow Puccini to use Illica's text.
* * *
Puccini was not there when Franchetti and Illica went to Verdi. If
they ever met, it was not as part of this incident. I guess Puccini
made Ricordi an offer he couldn't refuse...
number_six
> Same inquiry re : Puccini and Rachmaninoff.
>
> Regards, Rugby
It doesn't look like there's a story with a connection between these
two, based on the index of my Lebrecht Musical Anecdotes book. But
their dates have considerable overlap, so maybe there's something,
even though, as pointed out above, they weren't mining the same
territory.
Steve de Mena
I thought it was some sort of joke....that I didn't get.
Steve
Richard Loeb
news:1186886896.1...@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
was just that Ricordi (and Illica) knew that Puccini wanted Tosca as well
and they saw more lire in their future going with the composer of Manon
Lescaut and La Boheme than the composer of Asrael and Cristoforo Colombo. So
the two of them (Illica and Ricordi) convinced Franchetti that Illicas book
was pretty poor and the theme unsuited to him. The day after they persuaded
Franchetti to give the project up, they signed Puccini for the very same
project. Art isn't always pretty, is it????? Richard
number_six
>>Art isn't always pretty, is it?????
>
No, Indeed not. And as for Franchetti, I guess the rest is history.
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:5i784nF...@mid.individual.net:
> Rugby wrote:
>> Same inquiry re : Puccini and Rachmaninoff.
>
> Why should there be here, they worked in different genres.
Rachmaninoff did write three one-act operas; now let's see, which other
composer might have done such a thing?
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Tom Deacon is a liar and a scoundrel who cannot hold on to a job.
Steve de Mena
> Paul Ilechko <pile...@patmedia.net> appears to have caused the following
> letters to be typed in news:5i784nF...@mid.individual.net:
>
>> Rugby wrote:
>>> Same inquiry re : Puccini and Rachmaninoff.
>> Why should there be here, they worked in different genres.
>
> Rachmaninoff did write three one-act operas; now let's see, which other
> composer might have done such a thing?
>
Wow, I am impressed you made that connection.
Steve
david...@aol.com
Manon Lescaut, Puccini's third opera and the earliest opera by Puccini
that still holds the stage. By that point, Verdi had been a leading
figure on the Italian stage for half a century. Far from being a
lionized master, the young Puccini was only another gifted newcomer.
Bohème was not premiered until 1896, Tosca not until 1900, a year
before Verdi died. Attempting to keep up at all costs with the latest
developments is the last thing that most people do after their
retirement or at Verdi's age. The notion that Verdi might have felt
threatened by Puccini is risible. There was no competition, no
rivalry. The circumstances were very different years earlier in the
1860's with the emergence of Boito and the Scapigliatura movement,
when Verdi had been highly sensitive to the opinion and attitudes of
the circle of young composers around Boito. (The Italian premiere of
Don Carlo occurred a few weeks after the first performance of Boito's
Mefistofele.) Verdi's ambivalence toward Wagner is another subject of
far greater significance than his relationship to Puccini.
Nevertheless a few equivocal remarks from Verdi on the subject of
Puccini have survived. At the end of his life, for example, Verdi
wondered ironically why Puccini had needed so many bells in the
opening of the last act of Tosca when he had only needed one in the
Miserere from Il Trovatore. Shortly after the premiere of Puccini's
first opera, Le Villi, in 1884, Verdi had written to a friend, "I've
heard the musician Puccini is being very well spoken of . . . . He
follows the modern trends, which is natural, but he keeps steadily to
opera, which is neither ancient nor modern. However, it seems to me
that the symphonic element predominates in him! No harm in that.
Only here you have to proceed with care. Opera is opera; symphony is
symphony, and I don't think it's a good idea to write a piece merely
for the pleasure of making the orchestra dance." These platitudes
echo nationalist sentiments about the distinction between the Italian
and German traditions that Verdi had been expressing since the first
Italian performance of Lohengrin. There is some evidence that Verdi
expressed somewhat less enthusiasm for Le Villi in conversation with
Amilcare Ponchielli, the composer of La gioconda.
Julian Budden is very sensible on this subject: "The complaint that
his younger contemporaries were 'germanizing' and selling out their
Italian birthright for a mess of ultramontane pottage which runs like
a leitmotif through Verdi's correspondence is usually regarded as the
perverse grumbling of a rugged patriot[....] In fact his view was
widely shared and not only in Italy itself. 'The Italian genius,'
George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1901, 'is to be magnificently impervious;
the German's to be magnificently assimilative.'"
Needless to say, the later operas of Verdi were a principal influence
on Puccini, and above all Aida and Otello. In Gianni Schicchi,
Puccini courted comparison with Falstaff at more than one point. The
development of a more seamless and naturalistic continuum in the
interests of a more naturalistic theatre had been a goal of Italian
opera since the heyday of Donizetti. It had largely been realized
with Verdi's later operas. Puccini was formed in a post-Boito-an and
post-Wagnerian world in which self-conscious theorizing about opera
had become commonplace. Nevertheless, Wagner himself was at most a
vague general model for Puccini. The principal non-Italian influence
on his style was Massenet, to whom both Puccini's French-tinged
harmonic language and conversational approach to drama were palpably
beholden.
-david gable
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:46bea49c$0$31246$4c36...@roadrunner.com:
Spare me your sarcasm. Rachmaninoff also was one of the conductors at the
Bolshoi Opera for a few years, around the time Puccini was on the rise. Were
they performing imports at the Bolshoi in those days?
Steve de Mena
> Steve de Mena <ste...@stevedemena.com> appears to have caused the following
> letters to be typed in news:46bea49c$0$31246$4c36...@roadrunner.com:
>
>> Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
>>> Paul Ilechko <pile...@patmedia.net> appears to have caused the following
>>> letters to be typed in news:5i784nF...@mid.individual.net:
>>>
>>>> Rugby wrote:
>>>>> Same inquiry re : Puccini and Rachmaninoff.
>>>> Why should there be here, they worked in different genres.
>>> Rachmaninoff did write three one-act operas; now let's see, which other
>>> composer might have done such a thing?
>> Wow, I am impressed you made that connection.
>
> Spare me your sarcasm. Rachmaninoff also was one of the conductors at the
> Bolshoi Opera for a few years, around the time Puccini was on the rise. Were
> they performing imports at the Bolshoi in those days?
>
Actually, I wasn't being sarcastic.
Steve
Rugby
other
> >> composer might have done such a thing?
>
> Bolshoi Opera for a few years, around the time Puccini was on the rise. Were
> they performing imports at the Bolshoi in those days?
>
In addition to Matthew's insights, always seemed to me the two exhibit
strikingly similar lyrical,emotional,harmonic inclinations. Several of
Rachmaninoff's solo piano works could have been in "Musique Russe"
collection or the like composed by Puccini; some of " Turandot" or "
Butterfly" not inconceivable from Rachmaninoff. I would think each
would have found the other's muisc attractive , but communication
difficult I suspect. Others here might ( or might not) see other
parallels.
Pure subjective, speculative BS; this Group is suppossed to be for
such fun ?
Regards, Rugby
Matthew B. Tepper
MIFrost
news:1186899173.3...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, was premiered in 1893, the same year as
Manon Lescaut, Puccini's third opera and the earliest opera by Puccini
that still holds the stage. By that point, Verdi had been a leading
figure on the Italian stage for half a century. Far from being a
lionized master, the young Puccini was only another gifted newcomer.
I believe I should have looked more closely at the appropriate dates of
these two composers before asking my question. Thank you (all) for taking
the time to reply.
MIFrost
James Kahn
It's still a good question, but I think the issue is more why Puccini
didn't show more interest in Verdi, as opposed to the other way around.
--
Jim
New York, NY
(Please remove "nospam." to get my e-mail address)
http://www.panix.com/~kahn