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He used these men as catspaws, rarely putting himself forward or allowing his own name to appear, but pulling the wires of government in privacy by means of intermediate agents. The Medicean party was called at first Puccini from a certain Puccio, whose name was better known in caucus or committee than that of his real master.
I loved the beautiful country, and the life suited me. The people were kind. I had my own home in Florence, which is still there and to which I can return when my season is over here. Best of all I had the opportunity of creating all the new tenor rôles in the recent operas of Puccini, Montemezzi, Pizzetti and Gratico.
With 'La Tosca, which was produced in 1899, Puccini won another success, though for very different reasons from those which made 'La Bohème' so conspicuous a triumph. The libretto is a clever condensation of Sardou's famous drama. The scene is laid in Rome in the year 1800.
'Chatterton' was a failure, but 'La Bohème' , though somewhat cast into the shade by Puccini's work upon the same subject, scored a decided success. Leoncavallo's music is conceived in a totally different mood from that of Puccini.
The chief ambition of Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, and all the others has been to be called "the Italian Wagner;" and their operas are much more like Wagner's than like Rossini's and Donizetti's, being free from arias and the vocal embroideries that formerly were the essence of Italian opera. The same is true of the operas written in recent decades in France, Germany, and other countries.
This in no way detracts from what Mascagni, Leoncavallo and others have accomplished. It is only my personal estimate of Puccini as a composer.
That comes of itself" ... but they made the further progress of the composer more difficult thereby; music remained merely pretty. The successors of these supple singers even learned to sing Richard Strauss with broad cantilena effects. As for Puccini!
Puccini stopped with La Bohème, all the rest is repetition and not altogether admirable repetition. That he has been the hero of many phonographs has nothing to do with his intrinsic merits.
The blue Tyrrhenian is dotted with steamers and sailing boats, and yonder lies Viareggio in its belt of forest; far away, to the left, you discern the tower of Pisa. A placid lake between the two, wood-engirdled, is now famous as being the spot selected by the great Maestro Puccini to spend a summer month in much-advertised seclusion.
No, this was a woman's voice, singing the tempestuous, over-lapping phrases of Signor Puccini, then comparatively new in the world, but already so popular that even Hedger recognized his unmistakable gusts of breath. He looked about over the roofs; all was blue and still, with the well-built chimneys that were never used now standing up dark and mournful.
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