puccini's

Updated: May 3, 2025

Puccini's music echoes the spirit of Murger's romance with marvellous sincerity. It paints the mingled joy and grief of Bohemian life in hues the most delicate and tender. Like Murger, though dealing with things often squalid and unlovely, he never forgets that he is an artist. The sordid facts of life are gilded by the rainbow colours of romance.

R. A. (Richard Alexander) Streatfeild - The Opera : A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions of all Works in the Modern Repertory.

Miriam and Anne both expressed an eager desire to hear Puccini's exquisite opera, and Miss Southard called two of her friends on the telephone, inviting them to join the box party. The same evening gowns had to do duty for the opera as well as for "Hamlet," but this did not detract one whit from their pleasant anticipations.

Josephine Chase - Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College

'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.

R. A. (Richard Alexander) Streatfeild - The Opera : A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions of all Works in the Modern Repertory.

In the purely orchestral parts of the work the composer seems to have escaped from convention altogether, and has written music instinct with weird suggestion and unearthly force. Puccini's next opera, 'Edgar' , was a failure, but in 'Manon Lescaut' he once more achieved success. His treatment of the Abbé Prévost's romance, as may well be imagined, differs in toto from that of Massenet.

R. A. (Richard Alexander) Streatfeild - The Opera : A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions of all Works in the Modern Repertory.