The Man Behind the Music:
Giacomo Puccini
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Giacomo Puccini was born on December 22, 1858 in Lucca, Italy. He would become one of the most popular opera composers ever. Puccini’s father, Michele, taught music at the local conservatory and was a church musician. He died when Puccini was six years old. His mother was left to support six daughters and two sons. The family was poor and his mother worried about Puccini’s future. She believed that a good education could free her children from poverty. At age nine, Puccini joined the seminary, later becoming a chorister and organist at the Cathedral of Lucca. In 1876 Puccini and his brother walked 18 miles to see a performance of Verdi’s Aida in the town of Pisa. He knew opera was his destiny. He wanted to study in the conservatory in Milan, but he couldn’t afford the tuition. Puccini’s mother wrote a letter to the Queen of Italy to get a scholarship for her son. The letter worked, but it didn’t mean that Puccini was now rich. He wrote to his mother about food, requesting a little olive oil or some beans. Puccini quipped of his lifestyle, “At five I have a thrifty meal with soup, then I light up a cigar and I go to the Galleria.” In 1882 when Puccini was 24, he submitted his first opera, Le Villi (The Willies) into a competition. He didn’t win, but it was staged two years later. The opera was a success and one critic called Puccini "the composer Italy had waited for." The publishing company G. Ricordi & Co was impressed enough to commission Puccini to write the opera Edgar, but it failed at its 1889 premiere.
Elvira Bonturi In 1884 Puccini was hired to teach Elvira Bonturi Gemignani, the wife of his friend Narciso Gemignani, to sing and play the piano. Puccini and Elvira hit it off and soon became lovers despite that she had a son and a daughter with her husband. When Elvira discovered she was pregnant with Puccini’s child, she moved out of the house with her daughter to live with the poor composer. Divorce was illegal at the time in Italy, and woman had few rights under Italian law. It was impossible for Puccini and Elvira to marry.
They moved to the lakeside village of Torre del Lago in the Tuscany region of Italy. Here Elvira gave birth to Puccini’s son, Antonio and the composer threw himself into his work. He worked very hard on his next opera, Manon Lescaut (1893). It was an immediate triumph and gave Puccini fame and success, if not wealth. At Torre del Lago he composed his three most popular operas: La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madama Butterfly (1904), which finally brought him wealth. Puccini enjoyed the relaxed life he could lead by the lake. Here he indulged in his passions: hunting, smoking cigars, technology (he frequently corresponded with Thomas Edison), and fast cars. Puccini almost died after he was in a near-fatal car accident in 1903. Ironically, Elvira’s husband died the day after the accident. His death enabled Puccini to marry Elvira after the legally imposed 10 months of widowhood.
The Manfredi Incident Perhaps that which Puccini liked the most was women. He had a long series of love affairs outside of his relationship with Elvira. He reassured her that they meant nothing to him, but as an artist, he relied on them to help his creativity. This excuse did little to calm Elvira’s terrible jealousy. One of the worst examples of Elvira’s jealousy surrounded her treatment of their maid, Doria Manfredi. A local peasant girl who had worked for the Puccinis since she was 16, Doria helped Puccini during the long recovery period after the 1903 car accident. Doria was extremely attentive to Puccini’s needs and there was an affectionate bond between the two of them. Elvira noticed this affection and her jealousy got the best of her; she assumed the two were having an affair. She threw Doria out of the house and threatened to kill her. She vowed to ruin Doria’s reputation in the small village. Elvira publicly condemned Doria and screamed insults at Doria and her relatives in the street. In a quest to catch her husband with the former maid, Elvira disguised herself in one of Puccini’s suits in the hopes of catching the two together one night.