November 29, 1924—Giacomo Puccini, who assumed the mantle of master of Italian opera from Verdi, and who lived with as much tumult as he chronicled in La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly, died of cardiac arrest amid radiation treatment for throat cancer in Brussels, Belgium. Death deprived him of the chance to complete his final masterwork: Turandot.
In two years of blogging, I can’t recall offhand ever posting anything about opera. But goodness knows that as much drama exists in this creative genre as any other I’ve written about. And when I inadvertently came upon the current Puccini exhibit at the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, what I discovered proved irresistible.
I hadn’t been in the venerable New York landmark at Madison Avenue and 36th Street since a couple of years before its recent renovation. In fact, I came for an entirely different exhibit entirely there: one about Jane Austen. (More on this at a future date.)
I’m still not sure that I like the majority of changes done to Pierpont Morgan’s plush but comparatively cozy little abode. (I think I could have gotten used to that library very, very well, thank you!) The museum might also seriously contemplate more and easier-to-read directions to help visitors work their way up and down floors and through the galleries.
But, if the expanded space means the institution will be able to mount more exhibits such as this one—and the concurrent ones related to Austen and William Blake—all to the good.
“Celebrating Puccini” contains approximately forty items related to Puccini's career, including original manuscripts, first-edition librettos, personal letters, a period poster and playbills, souvenir postcards, and other rare materials.
I didn’t know that Puccini got himself into a scrape with a servant girl that, when exposed, led to the poor young woman’s suicide. I was also fascinated by the sometimes-stormy relationship between the composer and conductor Arturo Toscanini, who went from high regard to estrangement (over differences concerning WWI and the value of some of Puccini’s later works) and back again.
By 1924, composer and conductor had reconciled, but it was getting late in the game for Puccini. It turned out that what he believed to be a cold was actually throat cancer. Even with all of that, Puccini might have been able to complete his race against time to complete Turandot if only librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni had sent him their material a bit sooner.
At the request of Toscanini, Franco Alfano completed Turandot. At the opera’s premiere in 1926, when Toscanini came to the section where illness had forced Puccini to stop, his longtime collaborator stopped the orchestra, laid down his baton and said, “Here the opera ends because at this point the Maestro died."
“Celebrating Puccini,” lasting through the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, is on exhibit through January 10.
In two years of blogging, I can’t recall offhand ever posting anything about opera. But goodness knows that as much drama exists in this creative genre as any other I’ve written about. And when I inadvertently came upon the current Puccini exhibit at the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, what I discovered proved irresistible.
I hadn’t been in the venerable New York landmark at Madison Avenue and 36th Street since a couple of years before its recent renovation. In fact, I came for an entirely different exhibit entirely there: one about Jane Austen. (More on this at a future date.)
I’m still not sure that I like the majority of changes done to Pierpont Morgan’s plush but comparatively cozy little abode. (I think I could have gotten used to that library very, very well, thank you!) The museum might also seriously contemplate more and easier-to-read directions to help visitors work their way up and down floors and through the galleries.
But, if the expanded space means the institution will be able to mount more exhibits such as this one—and the concurrent ones related to Austen and William Blake—all to the good.
“Celebrating Puccini” contains approximately forty items related to Puccini's career, including original manuscripts, first-edition librettos, personal letters, a period poster and playbills, souvenir postcards, and other rare materials.
I didn’t know that Puccini got himself into a scrape with a servant girl that, when exposed, led to the poor young woman’s suicide. I was also fascinated by the sometimes-stormy relationship between the composer and conductor Arturo Toscanini, who went from high regard to estrangement (over differences concerning WWI and the value of some of Puccini’s later works) and back again.
By 1924, composer and conductor had reconciled, but it was getting late in the game for Puccini. It turned out that what he believed to be a cold was actually throat cancer. Even with all of that, Puccini might have been able to complete his race against time to complete Turandot if only librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni had sent him their material a bit sooner.
At the request of Toscanini, Franco Alfano completed Turandot. At the opera’s premiere in 1926, when Toscanini came to the section where illness had forced Puccini to stop, his longtime collaborator stopped the orchestra, laid down his baton and said, “Here the opera ends because at this point the Maestro died."
“Celebrating Puccini,” lasting through the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, is on exhibit through January 10.
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