Other, and better-known, Italian composers, he claimed, were interested in La Tosca.īut by January 1890, Puccini had opted for an adaptation of the Abbé Prévost’s novel, despite the fact that Massenet’s very successful Manon was a mere six years old. Sardou, offended by Italian reviews of his play, hoped a French composer might consider it, but was not averse to knowing how much cash Puccini would pay and what his percentage might be from performances of the resulting opera. Emanuele Muzio, a close friend and colleague of Giuseppe Verdi, was living and working in Paris at the time Ricordi asked him to investigate the possibility of this French patissier assigning the musical rights of his recipe to Puccini. Puccini was sufficiently intrigued, in 1889, to urge his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, to see about getting the rights from the playwright: “I can see the drama that I need” – nothing spectacular which would demand a huge amount of music. They had both seen Bernhardt play the role in Turin and Milan. And what a meal the Master Chef gave us!įerdinando Fontana, Puccini’s librettist for his first two operas, Le Villi and Edgar, suggested Sardou’s play La Tosca as their next collaboration. Tosca was an easier dish to prepare (though it had its problems), possibly because its base had already been made for some years before Puccini could use it. Too many cooks-at least five-were involved in the libretto of Puccini’s first great operatic success Manon Lescaut. For La Bohème the cooks were reduced to two: Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, but Henry Mürger’s original ingredients (a novel and its stage adaptation) proved difficult to mix to the Master Chef’s (Puccini) satisfaction.
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