What was Giacomo Puccini’s last opera?

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1. Happy T. says:

   July 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

   Puccini´s posthumous opera was Turandot. The première was on the night of April 25, 1926. The Scala audience had been waiting for Turandot since 1921, when the first rumours had begun to circulate that the composer was at work on a new opera. After the composer´s death, on November 29, 1924, some must have wondered if the opera would ever see the stage at all. But, for almost a year and a half, the delicate task of completing what Puccini had left unfinished had gone on, and the public gathered to pass judgement on the swan-song of the world´s most popular modern composer of opera.
   Turandot´s conductor on that opening night was Arturo Toscanini who, thirty years before, had consolidated the composer´s youthful fame, conducting the first performace of his La Bohème, at the Teatro Regio in Turin. Though he was to go on conducting Puccini´s music for another thirty years, Toscanini must have felt that this performance of Turandot was a kind of last farewell to his old friend. Everything was concentrated on the opera.
   The success of the first act, according to the next day´s reviews, was complete and enthusiastic. The second act was less warmly received. In the third act, after the scene of Liu´s death Toscanini set down his baton, stopping the orchestra and the artists on the stage. Then, one of the rare occasions on which he addressed the public from the podium, he turned to the audience and said "Here the opera ends, because at this point the Maestro died".
   At the next performances, Toscanini conducted the final few minutes of the opera, prepared from Puccini´s notes by the younger composer, Franco Alfano, under Toscanini´s watchful eye. Franco Alfano was commissioned by the publishers (with the assert of Toscanini and the Puccini heirs) to complete the opera.
2. Samirah says:

   July 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

   Turandot, still unfinished at the time of his death in 1924.
3. museofsatie says:

   July 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

   His last operatic work that was completed during his lifetime was his trilogy of operas, Il trittico (Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi).

   His last opera that was incomplete at the time of his death was Turnandot.
4. Addie V says:

   July 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

   WHO?I love the Opera,but I was out of town then.
5. suhwahaksaeng says:

   July 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

   Puccini’s publisher, Ricordi, commissioned Franco Alfano to complete the opera, referring to rough drafts which Puccini had left behind. Toscanini was unsatisfied with Alfano’s first attempt, so he persuaded Ricordi to pay Alfano to make a second attempt.

   While Alfano was still at work on the second attempt, Toscanini gave a performance of all Puccini had written. When he got to the end of Liu’s aria, he turned to the audience and said, "Here the maestro laid down his pen."
6. thom t says:

   July 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

   I think he’s still composing for the angels. A talent like that is not
   stopped easily!
7. Scots Pines says:

   July 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

   I think you should check it out on
   Wikipedia … the online encyclopedia … just type in your subject in the space designated for Web Search …. in this case it would be
   Giacomo Puccini … and you will find on the page a listing for the Wikipedia article …click it on and enjoy….
8. beccaweidner says:

   July 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

   He was working on turandot when he died, so it was left incomplete but the work was entrusted to be finished by someone else. However, there are arguments as to whether or not it was finished the way that Puccini inteded it to be….

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