Before the year was out, it was performed at opera houses in Germany, Russia, Brazil and Argentina as well, and the resulting royalties paid the 35-year-old Puccini quite handsomely. Manon Lescaut premiered in Turin on February 2, 1893, to great acclaim. He decided on an 18th-century French novel about a tragic love affair and collaborated with the librettists Guiseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica on its adaption. But Ricordi’s faith in Puccini’s talents remained unshakable, and he continued to support the composer financially as he set to work on his next composition.īlaming the failure of Edgar on its weak libretto (the lyrical portion of an opera), Puccini set out to find a strong story on which to base his new work. Performed there in 1889, Edgar was an utter failure. But more importantly, it caught the attention of the music publisher Giulio Ricordi, who acquired the rights to the piece and commissioned Puccini to compose a new opera for La Scala, one of the most important opera houses in the country. Premiering at the Teatro dal Verme in Milan in May 1884, La villi was well received by the audience. Although it was snubbed by the judges, the work won itself a small group of admirers, who ultimately funded its production. His first attempt at opera came later that year, when he composed the one-act La villi for a local competition. He graduated from the school in 1883, submitting the instrumental composition Capriccio sinfonico as his exit piece. Motivated by his newfound passion, Puccini threw himself into his studies and in 1880 gained admission to the Milan Conservatory, where he received instruction from noted composers. The experience planted in Puccini the seeds of what would become a long and lucrative career in opera.

But Puccini discovered his true calling in 1876, when he and one of his brothers walked nearly 20 miles to the nearby city of Pisa to attend a production of Verdi's Aida. By the age of 14 he had become the church organist and was beginning to write his first musical compositions as well. His education was also subsidized by the city, and over time, Giacomo started to show progress. Giacomo’s mother, Albina, believed otherwise and found him a tutor at the local music school. However, in 1864 Michele passed away when Giacomo was just 5 years old, and so the position was held for him by the church in anticipation of his eventual coming of age.īut the young Giacomo was disinterested in music and was a generally poor student, and for a time it seemed that the Puccini musical dynasty would end with Michele.

It was therefore taken for granted that Giacomo would carry on this legacy, succeeding his father, Michele, in the role first held by his great-great grandfather. Giacomo Puccini was born on December 22, 1858, in Lucca, Italy, where since the 1730s his family had been tightly interwoven with the musical life of the city, providing five generations of organists and composers to the Cathedral of San Martino, Lucca’s religious heart.

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