What do you love/hate about Puccini?
Joan Livingston
--
Joan, Santa Barbara
Trisha Benedict
: What do you love or hate about Puccini?
>>>>>
He's pure, unadulterated schlock, IMO. And I have to confess my dirty
little secret...I love Tosca! ;)
Trish (who needs a little schlock in her life sometimes)
MedeaII
except I don't usually go for sentimentality, and the libretto and story
ruined the music for me in his operas. However, I've been listen to it on
disc (as opposed to seeing it in the theatre) and it's grown on me.
Except Butterfly, which I think I'll always hate.
macke...@delphi.com
of La Boheme. Been to countless Met performances. What I HATE
about Puccini is the way that Andrew Lloyd Webber continues to
rip off the Italian master in virtually every schlocky
"musical" he "writes"!!!
-- Russ M.
Operafjt
of the finest composers at establishing mood and atnosphere through not
only the music, but also color in the orchestra. The opening of the third
act of Boheme is gentle snow ; the wind actually blows all the snow in act
two of Fanciulla. He is also a great psychological musical mind. Take
that scene in Boheme--the snow gently falls but underneath is a tension
and a feeling of being lost, just like Mimi is at that point. In
Fanciulla, the wind and snow come blowing right up reflecting the boiling
emotions of love that will soon take place. Puccini also is a great
master of the theater (I don't care what Joseph Kerman says) and let's not
give any less credit to someone who could write such memorable melody.
Those melodies are some of the most beautiful and beautifully written for
the voice! As you can see, I'm a Puccini fanatic...and a romantic at
heart!
Frank Toth
Denver, CO
Patrik Iver KTF87
:
: I love to hate the things he does to his heroines.
:
: L-J
:
Do you perchance love what he does to the men in Tosca?
--
Patrik Iver
pi...@abo.fi
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
No disclaimer needed - You trust me, don't You?
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Michael Sekus
> What I HATE about Puccini is the way that Andrew Lloyd Webber continues
to
>rip off the Italian master in virtually every schlocky "musical" he
"writes"!!!
>
> -- Russ M.
L-J Baker
Michael Sekus
>L-J Baker (ljb...@ccu1.auckland.ac.nz) wrote:
>:
>: I love to hate the things he does to his heroines.
>Do you perchance love what he does to the men in Tosca?
Puccini was quite sadistic with almost all his heroines. They are for the
main part women who are mistreated by their men and suffer accordingly.
Aside from his failing health, I think one of the reasons that Puccini did
not finish Turandot is that the opera had no where to go after he "killed
off" Liu. She is the true lover in this opera. Calaf is a cold blooded,
opportunistic cad and the ice princess Turandot redefines the word bitch. I
think that Puccini could not bring himself to bring these two people
together in a happy ending. It is just not in his character to do so. Liu
is his type of women, suffering from unrequited love she kills herself -
opera over!
Any comments?
mick...@ozonline.com.au
I once heard his work (ALW's) described as inspired mediocrity. I
wish I had thought of it
Mickie Fitton
laurent cartayrade
: Aside from his failing health, I think one of the reasons that Puccini did
: not finish Turandot is that the opera had no where to go after he "killed
: off" Liu. She is the true lover in this opera. Calaf is a cold blooded,
: opportunistic cad and the ice princess Turandot redefines the word bitch. I
: think that Puccini could not bring himself to bring these two people
: together in a happy ending. It is just not in his character to do so. Liu
: is his type of women, suffering from unrequited love she kills herself -
: opera over!
:
: Any comments?
:
The fact that he himself died didn't help...
Laurent
macke...@delphi.com
>While Puccini did "do in" a few men in Tosca, you have to admit tho that
>Puccini was quite sadistic with almost all his heroines. They are for the
>main part women who are mistreated by their men and suffer accordingly.
ends. But they are such beautiful creatures (singing beautiful music) getting
there!
I think there's a tendency to overgeneralize Puccini's treatment of women
and character types in general. There's a lot more to his characters than first
meets the eye (and ear).
One of my particular interests is Puccini's "bad guys." They are far more
complex than mere "black hat" types. Scarpia in Tosca and Rance in Fanciulla
are the usually fingered evildoers. But their music says "Not so fast!"
Both these characters are rather pathetic types (and in that pathos, very
human as well). One of the most moving scenes in Tosca is that of Scarpia
abandoning God because of his admitted obsession with the heroine, the gor-
geous strains of the Te Deum swelling around him. Sure, he's a pretty nasty
guy as a result of the obsession--but, damn it, he just can't help it. (And
Cavarodossi strikes me as pretty much a limp noodle, anyway.) It's not just
the heroine . . . no one does too well in Tosca. . . .
But my all time favorite is Jack Rance. Another black hat. Rance is
Scarpia to Dick Johnson's Cavarodossi (although Johnson has a bit more starch
than whiny Cav). He's painted as fairly one-dimensional, too---until, that is,
he gets his chance (ala Scarpia) to confess his own obsession for Minnie. His
aria, dalla mia casa son partito, is truly touching. He acknowledges that he's
become a hard-edged "warped and poisoned" man to whom only gold now has mean-
ing. Puccini even beats some modern defense lawyers to the punch when he has
Rance say that he's become so mean and nasty because "nobody cared, nobody
loved" him (the abused-as-a-child defense?). Gold is the only thing that hasn't
let him down. But here's the clincher: he'd give up that gold, his raison
d'etre, for just one kiss from Minnie. That's class, man. Jack, baby, I'm with
you all the way.
Fanciulla's a good example of the failure of generality in another way:
instead of leaping to her death from the top of a fortress, slitting her own
throat, or dying at the insistence of an ice queen, sweet bible-reading, gun-
toting Minnie rides off, literally, into the sunset with her man. And keep in
mind that Minnie is a feminist of the first order--before the term was even
coined! She owns her own place in the mountains, lives there content--and in-
dependent--as can be, plays poker with the best of them (even pulling a fast
one on the otherwise pretty savvy Rance), hadles a shootin' iron as well as
Annie Oakley, and saves Dick Johnson's ass at just the right moment, rather than
the other way around.
But even with all that said, neither Johnson nor Minnie are the real
heroes of Fanciulla. The true stars of this opera are the miners--they are the
most poignant, most humorous, most interestingly drawn characters in the work.
And they undeniably have the best music. After all, the last thing we see (and
the last music we hear) is not Johnson and Minnie, it is the saddened faces
of the miners, so capriciously abandoned by their school marm, and that
plaintive tune that has been associated with them from the very earliest
moments of the opera. (And--three cheers for the director--the latest produc-
tion at the Met also has a completely crushed, tragically isolated Jack Rance
standing at center stage when the curtain falls, a man completely broken as
the only person who could ever have pulled him out of his bitter existence rides
away forever. . . .)
No. No. No generalities, please. Puccini's too good a composer and dramatist
for generalities. Three cheers for the Maestro! Three cheers for Scarpia!
And a special thought for Jack Rance . . . human beings all.
Viva Puccini!
----Russ M.
eh...@delphi.com
>of La Boheme. Been to countless Met performances. What I HATE
>about Puccini is the way that Andrew Lloyd Webber continues to
>rip off the Italian master in virtually every schlocky
>"musical" he "writes"!!!
"The Phantom of the musical" -
O mio bambino phantom, your music tops the list.
The only problem is Puccini is awfully pissed.
Just so you know that you're not alone,
Eric
Gene Ward Smith
> I LOVE Puccini--virtually everything he wrote. And I never tire
> of La Boheme. Been to countless Met performances. What I HATE
> about Puccini is the way that Andrew Lloyd Webber continues to
> rip off the Italian master in virtually every schlocky
> "musical" he "writes"!!!
What I hate about Puccini is that he wrote schlock. What I love about
Puccini is that he wrote schlock.
--
Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/University of Toledo
gsm...@newton.utoledo.edu
E.M.P. Pringle
>Michael Sekus <mse...@nyc.pipeline.com> writes:
>
>>While Puccini did "do in" a few men in Tosca, you have to admit tho that
>>Puccini was quite sadistic with almost all his heroines. They are for the
>>main part women who are mistreated by their men and suffer accordingly.
>
> Well, yes, the Maestro does seem to leave his heroines to rather dismal
>ends. But they are such beautiful creatures (singing beautiful music) getting
>there!
>
> I think there's a tendency to overgeneralize Puccini's treatment of women
>and character types in general. There's a lot more to his characters than first
>meets the eye (and ear).
>
> One of my particular interests is Puccini's "bad guys." They are far more
>complex than mere "black hat" types. Scarpia in Tosca and Rance in Fanciulla
>are the usually fingered evildoers. But their music says "Not so fast!"
>
> Both these characters are rather pathetic types (and in that pathos, very
>human as well). One of the most moving scenes in Tosca is that of Scarpia
>abandoning God because of his admitted obsession with the heroine, the gor-
>geous strains of the Te Deum swelling around him. Sure, he's a pretty nasty
>guy as a result of the obsession--but, damn it, he just can't help it. (And
>Cavarodossi strikes me as pretty much a limp noodle, anyway.) It's not just
>the heroine . . . no one does too well in Tosca. . . .
I'm not sure I agree with you about your analysis of Scarpia's character. There
are several indications that this is his normal mode of behavior, not a one-off
result of an obsession with one woman. Apart from the obvious fact that he's
been through all this before with the wife/mistress of one Count Palmieri,
there is Cavaradossi's vehement response about his being a 'libertino'
(apologies fo spelling?) when he is first mentioned to him, and the fact that
Tosca readily knows that he can be bribed (and his own words confirm this when
he starts his big monologue to her). I
therefore feel that he is a bit blacker than you would paint him; rather more
calculating in his nastiness, at least most of the time.
[very good comments on Fanciulla with which I heartily agree deleted]
While you have pointed out the strengths of Puccini's characters and their
behaviour, and I agree, I can't help adding that perhaps the thing I hate most
about Puccini is the very stupid things (even by operatic standards) that his
characters do. To mention a few examples: trying to collect together your
jewllery when you know the police are on their way to arrest you is not clever.
Stabbing the Chief of Police when you can't even flee the city until next
morning is even more idiotic. Buuterfly's naivite goes,for me, beyond engaging
and pathetic into so immense that I find it hard to sympathise with her fully.
Cavaradossi's behaviour during Act II leads one to suppose that he has a death
wish, so suicidally stupid is it. Magda gets into an unnecessarily
self-destructive mood at the end of the opera (can't she at least see what her
lover thinks first?)
While his characters are infinitely better drawn than many composers, it's a
pity he so often chose ones who did such ludicrously stupid things.
laurent cartayrade
[...]
: While you have pointed out the strengths of Puccini's characters and their
: behaviour, and I agree, I can't help adding that perhaps the thing I hate most
: about Puccini is the very stupid things (even by operatic standards) that his
: characters do. To mention a few examples: trying to collect together your
: jewllery when you know the police are on their way to arrest you is not clever.
: Stabbing the Chief of Police when you can't even flee the city until next
: morning is even more idiotic. Buuterfly's naivite goes,for me, beyond engaging
: and pathetic into so immense that I find it hard to sympathise with her fully.
: Cavaradossi's behaviour during Act II leads one to suppose that he has a death
: wish, so suicidally stupid is it. Magda gets into an unnecessarily
: self-destructive mood at the end of the opera (can't she at least see what her
: lover thinks first?)
: While his characters are infinitely better drawn than many composers, it's a
: pity he so often chose ones who did such ludicrously stupid things.
Should Tosca sleep with Scarpia, should Butterfly forget
Pinkerton and marry a nice Japanese man, should Caravadossi collaborate,
just because those would be the sensible things to do?
Interesting game. What if Don Giovanni repented (going to Hell is
really stupid also when you're given a chance to avoid it)? What if
Sophie married Ochs? Alfredo settled down with a nice bourgeois girl?
Figaro let his boss cuckold him? Brunnhilde did not help Siegmund and
Sieglinde? Siegfried decided that that fire is really kind of hot?
Tristan and Isolde that the whole thing is really too much trouble? Calaf
that Turandot is not worth it and Liu a great catch (actually, I'd like
that!!)?
I could go on and on. Everyone, please add to the list. It's
great fun.
But would it be opera?
Laurent
g.f.
laurent cartayrade <laur...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
[many not so fun operatic possiblities]
> I could go on and on. Everyone, please add to the list. It's
>great fun.
>
> Laurent
I like the sentiment, and the list. (which I didn't include because
of my evil editor). As to the sentiment, W.H.Auden said something
along the lines of "Opera libretti should not be sensible. One does
not sing when feeling sensible." As to adding to the list, I'll bite:
What if Elektra decided Daddy was nice and all but it was time to get
on with things? What if Jenufa just went to the clinic? (sorry, that
one is a little dark) What if Amneris had found her inner child and
stopped being so codependant?
Robert Sheaffer
Michael Sekus <mse...@nyc.pipeline.com> wrote:
>
>Aside from his failing health, I think one of the reasons that Puccini did
>not finish Turandot is that the opera had no where to go after he "killed
>off" Liu. She is the true lover in this opera. Calaf is a cold blooded,
>opportunistic cad and the ice princess Turandot redefines the word bitch. I
>think that Puccini could not bring himself to bring these two people
>together in a happy ending. It is just not in his character to do so. Liu
>is his type of women, suffering from unrequited love she kills herself -
>opera over!
So I guess Puccini said to himself something like "Well, I don't
like the way this opera is turning out. So I'd better hurry up
and die."
--
Robert Sheaffer - shea...@minerva.robadome.com - Skeptical to the Max!
Joan Livingston
dilemma for which there is no good answer (like many things in life) and
let us suffer, weep, laugh, cry and then let us go home a little wiser.
Joan, Santa Barbara
BGNewhouse
The level of purely and magnificently musical invention. Really. I'm not
just talking about the big tunes, necessarily, but the stuff in
between--the half-tunes that lead into the tunes (Mimi's and Rodolfo's
first meeting is a fine example, as in the Butterfly-Sharpless scene in
Act II). Not to mention the very real structural ability to build up to a
climax (usually a big tune) almost symphonically so that even a relatively
short and simple tune comes to positively summarize the situation ("Vissi
d'arte" and "Ch'ella mi creda" are classic examples)--and the textural and
orchestral inventions. In those respects Puccini is light-years in front
of his Italian contemporaries, and even some distance beyond Massenet
(from whom Puccini developed his melodic style)
What I hate about Puccini--
1) The superficiality of his dramatic imagination (except for Boheme and
maybe Butterfly). Yes, the man was a "man of the theater", but that's
just manipulating the psychological equivalent of special effects.
Somehow Tosca and Turandot, as dramas, seem far too simple-minded for the
wonderfully sophisticated music Puccini lavished upon them--I don't get
the sense that the drama is about anything to do with the characters any
more than in an average Hollywood spectacular (and this has nothing to do
with dramatic "absurdities"; I am willing to defend the libretto of
Trovatore till the day I die from such charges)
2) That he wrote so few operas that the ones he did write get overplayed
in routine performances--fodder for subscription series--more often than
any other composer.
3) That his operas dominate the general idea of what it means for opera
to be "dramatic" (i.e. simple-as-possible plots of romantic love
pathetically thwarted in vaguely exotic settings of no political import,
lushly orchestrated with the arias as short as possible so we can get out
in time for our second last train) at the expense of other composers'
operas--Mozart, Handel, Rossini, Musorgsky, even Verdi...and that
composers of musicals with artistic ambitions all too often take his works
as a model rather than developing someting more in accord with their own
traditions, with invariably pretentious and disastrous results (e.g. Miss
Saigon, Phantom of the Opera)
Brian Newhouse
TLCWA
the townspeople for their hatred of his lover, and burns his own house
down. Now THERE'S a smart thing to do. Ariadne should have had bigger fish
to fry than sit on her deserted island waiting for Theseus to return
(just as well, though, since it provides some heavenly music). I don't
think Don Carlo quite knew when to give up either....kind of a whiner,
given the political forces he was up against.
tl...@aol.com
E.M.P. Pringle
Further example of really clever behaviour; In 'Trovatore' Leonora kills
herself _before_ di Luna has released Manrico, which rather makes the whole
business pointless, since not unnaturally di Luna is peeved.
Isolier
har...@routledge.com
I
>
> Dido could (should?) have scuttled Aeneas's boats.
Joan Livingston
Fricka should have read "Women Who Love Too much". Wotan should have
joined "Promise Keepers". Erda should have taken birth control pills.
Friea should have sold her apples to Estee Lauder. Loge should rent
himself out for home backyard bar-b-ques. The Rheinmaidens should have
kept Alberich's head under water a little longer. Sigmund and Sieglinde
just -shouldn't- have done it. Brunhilde should have checked in her horse
and become a dental hygienist. Siegfried should have joined the scarecrow
on the yellow brick road and looked for some brains. Mime should have
joined Parents without Partners.
--
Joan, Santa Barbara