Looks at Giacomo Puccini through his operas

This lively and informative collection touches upon all of the master's operas and also offers select bibliographies, a chronology, and a dramatis personae of the countless people who participated in Puccini's career.

The performance history of each of Puccini's operas are reviewed and related to events in his life.

Opera was and still is one of the oldest forms of entertainment. It’s been around longer than any other art form known to mankind, longer than radio, the internet, video games, television and even movies. It’s an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining a script called a libretto and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates music, singing, scenery, costumes and sometimes dancing. Some operas have spoken dialogue called a Singspiel in which the singers talk between songs aka arias. Other operas have a singing style called a Recitative in which the singers imitate spoken dialogue by singing their lines instead of talking.

This masterful biography provides the most authentic and revealing portrait to date of this major operatic composer

Puccini's operas are among the most popular and widely performed in the world, yet few books have examined his body of work from an analytical perspective. This volume remedies that lack in lively prose accessible to scholars and opera enthusiasts alike.