German vs. Italian Opera styles and the ways in which Puccini melded the two.?

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1. suhwahaksaeng says:

   July 2, 2010 at 7:45 am

   I see Puccini resembling Wagner in that:

   ? Each act is continuous. There is no thick double bar after each aria.

   ? He employed motifs. There is a motif for Schaunard in La Boheme and a motif for Sharpless in Madama Butterfly.

   ? He wrote few square melodies, meaning that he wrote very few 16-measure melodies of 4 equal phrases.

   ? He wrote very few melodies with rhythmic accompaniments. There is a waltz in Girl of the Golden West, and there are several waltzes in La Rondine, but those are exceptions.

   Puccini, Mascagni, and Leoncavallo started a trend known as "verismo."
   Until their time, most operas were about royalty, supernatural beings, and mythological characters.
   They were the first to specialize in operas about the common people.

   Incidentally, Puccini grew up in his home town of Lucca.
   In his adult years, he made a trip to Austria to meet Franz Lehar, but he never became fluent in German.
   And he wrote only 12 operas. (Too bad!)
2. Woodward says:

   July 2, 2010 at 7:45 am

   Alright, so check it out:

   Puccini was actually a total jerk. He was all about slacking off, and letting his fat rat reputation carry his whole career. And he earned that reputation, at first. He was all over German opera, having lived there as a small boy. But then, you know, he hit 50 and was all about getting in touch with his Italian roots. But by this time he was super lazy, and wasn’t about to learn a whole other style of opera.

   So Puccini got in touch a guy who knew all about Italian opera, commissioned about 15 operas, and waited patiently. The guy finished, and Puccini arranged to meet him in this really sketchy French bar. The guy handed over the operas, then BAM, Puccini killed the poop out of him. He left the body right there an everything, and no one really cared.

   So, Puccini just sort of edited those 15 operas to make them "more German," but stopped short of making them "totally German."

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