Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini
(1858-1924)

Zurlini, Nicholas
Orchestra, Period 1
4/3/10

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, who was Italian and an amazing opera composer, was born in Tuscany and more specifically Lucca, Italy. He was born on December 22nd, 1858, and even though he was born in the Romantic era of music writing, started making his works in the 20th century era of music. When he was born he had five generations of musical history in his family behind him, including his grandfather, another composer, Domenico Puccini. When Puccini was only five his beloved father died. Since his father died he was sent to study with his uncle, Fortunato Magi, to play for and conduct the choir for the church in Lucca. While he was a child he went to see Verdi’s, a famous composer during his childhood, Aida and from there was inspired by that magical opera to become an opera composer.
When Giacomo was twenty-one years old he enrolled in the Milan Conservatory to further teach him opera composition. While he was there Puccini studied with Amilcare Ponchielli and Antonio Bazzini. Also in his one year of studying he was exposed to another composer’s music, Wagner, which then went on to influence his music. In that same year he made his first well known work called Messa which then marked the end of his family’s association with church music.
Once his one year of studies at the conservatory was over, he went on to write more operas in a house he just bought which had all that he needed, peace, quite, and beauty in Torre del Lago, another town in Tuscany fifteen miles away from Lucca. In Puccini’s lifetime he wrote ten amazing operas, and of those ten his major works are La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot. La Boheme was one of his first plays written in his new house. This play was based off of Scenes de la vie de boheme by Henri Murger mainly using aspects of the characters from Scenes de la vie de boheme since...