The Czech Mint's free cycle of half-ounce gold coins is dedicated to important figures in world history.
So far, the Mint has presented a legendary poet, an immortal playwright, a religious reformer, a controversial painter, a Renaissance genius, a master of horror, a painter afflicted with madness, a virile writer, a master storyteller, a cunning seducer, a divine architect and a whole host of brilliant composers.
Now this prestigious list continues to grow…
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (22.12.1858 – 29.11.1924):
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (22.12.1858 – 29.11.1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas.
Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late-Baroque era.
Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera, he later developed his work in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.
His most renowned works are La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (1924), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas.
Early career and first operas:
Puccini wrote an orchestral piece called the "Capriccio sinfonico" as a thesis composition for the Milan Conservatory. Puccini's teachers Ponchielli and Bazzini were impressed by the work, and it was performed at a student concert at the conservatory on 14 July 1883, conducted by Franco Faccio.
Puccini's work was favourably reviewed in the Milanese publication La Perseveranza, and thus Puccini began to build a reputation as a young composer of promise in Milanese music circles.
Le Villi:
After the premiere of the Capriccio sinfonico, Ponchielli and Puccini discussed the possibility that Puccini's next work might be an opera.
Ponchielli invited Puccini to stay at his villa, where Puccini was introduced to Ferdinando Fontana.
Puccini and Fontana agreed to collaborate on an opera, for which Fontana would provide the libretto. Puccini submitted the work, titled "Le Villi" ('The Fairies'), for Casa Musicale Sonzogno it's first of four musical competitions, advertised in April 1883, for a new, unperformed opera "inspired by the best traditions of Italian opera", which could be "idyllic, serious, or comic", to be judged by a panel including Galli and Ponchielli.
Puccini's submission was disqualified because its manuscript was illegible; the second competition, in 1889, was notably won by Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.
Despite the defeat in the competition, Le Villi was later staged at the Teatro Dal Verme, premiering on 31 May 1884.
Casa Ricordi assisted with the premier by printing the libretto without charge. Fellow students from the Milan Conservatory formed a large part of the orchestra.
The performance was enough of a success that Casa Ricordi purchased the opera. Revised into a two-act version with an intermezzo between the acts, Le Villi was performed at La Scala in Milan, on 24 January 1885. However, Ricordi did not publish the score until 1887, hindering further performance of the work.
Edgar:
Giulio Ricordi, head of G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers, was sufficiently impressed with Le Villi and its young composer that he commissioned a second opera, which would result in "Edgar".
Work was begun in 1884 when Fontana began working out the scenario for the libretto.
Puccini finished primary composition in 1887 and orchestration in 1888.
Edgar premiered at La Scala on 21 April 1889 to a lukewarm response. The work was withdrawn for revisions after its third performance.
In a Milanese newspaper, Giulio Ricordi published a defence of Puccini's skill as a composer, while criticizing Fontana's libretto.
A revised version met with success at the Teatro del Giglio in Puccini's native Lucca on 5 September 1891.
In 1892, further revisions reduced the length of the opera from four acts to three, in a version that was well received in Ferrara and was performed in Turin and in Spain.
Puccini made further revisions in 1901 and 1905, but the work never achieved popularity.
Without the personal support of Ricordi, Edgar might have cost Puccini his career. Puccini had eloped with his former piano student, the married Elvira Gemignani (née Bonturi), and Ricordi's associates were willing to turn a blind eye to his lifestyle as long as he was successful. When Edgar failed, they suggested to Ricordi that he should drop Puccini, but Ricordi said that he would stay with him and continued his allowance until his next opera.
Manon Lescaut:
On commencing his next opera, "Manon Lescaut", Puccini announced that he would write his own libretto so that "no fool of a librettist" could spoil it.
Ricordi persuaded him to accept Ruggero Leoncavallo as his librettist, but Puccini soon asked Ricordi to remove him from the project.
Four other librettists were then involved with the opera, as Puccini constantly changed his mind about the structure of the piece. It was almost by accident that the final two, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, came together to complete the opera.
Manon Lescaut premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 2 February 1893.
By coincidence, Puccini's first enduringly popular opera appeared within a week of the premiere of Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, which was first performed on 9 February 1893.
In anticipation of the premiere, La Stampa wrote that Puccini was a young man concerning whom "great hopes" had a real basis ("un giovane che è tra i pochi sul quale le larghe speranze non siano benigne illusioni").
Manon Lescaut was a great success and established Puccini's reputation as the most promising rising composer of his generation, and the most likely "successor" to Verdi as the leading exponent of the Italian operatic tradition. Illica and Giacosa returned as librettists for Puccini for his next three operas, which were his greatest successes: La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly.
La bohème:
Puccini's next work after Manon Lescaut was "La bohème", a four-act opera based on the 1851 book by Henri Murger, La Vie de Bohème.
La bohème premiered in Turin in 1896, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Within a few years, it had been performed in many of the leading opera houses of Europe, including in Britain, as well as in the United States. It was a popular success and remains one of the most frequently performed operas ever written.
The libretto of the opera, freely adapted from Murger's episodic novel, combines comic elements of the impoverished life of the young protagonists with tragic aspects, such as the death of the young seamstress Mimí. Puccini's own life as a young man in Milan served as a source of inspiration for elements of the libretto. During his years as a conservatory student and in the years before Manon Lescaut, he experienced poverty similar to that of the bohemians in La bohème, including a chronic shortage of necessities like food, clothing and money to pay rent.
Although Puccini was granted a small monthly stipend by the Congregation of Charity in Rome (Congregazione di caritá), he frequently had to pawn his possessions to cover basic expenses
Puccini himself commented: "I lived that Bohème, when there wasn't yet any thought stirring in my brain of seeking the theme of an opera". ("Quella Bohème io l'ho vissuta, quando ancora non mi mulinava nel cervello l'idea di cercarvi l'argomento per un'opera in musica.")
Tosca:
Puccini's next work after La bohème was "Tosca" (1900), arguably Puccini's first foray into verismo, the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence.
Puccini had been considering an opera on this theme since he saw the play Tosca by Victorien Sardou in 1889, when he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou's permission for the work to be made into an opera: "I see in this Tosca the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music."
The music of Tosca employs musical signatures for particular characters and emotions, which have been compared to Wagnerian leitmotivs, and some contemporaries saw Puccini as thereby adopting a new musical style influenced by Richard Wagner.
Automobile crash and near death:
On 25 February 1903, Puccini was seriously injured in a car crash during a nighttime journey on the road from Lucca to Torre del Lago.
During the medical examinations that he underwent it was also found that he was suffering from a form of diabetes. The accident and its consequences slowed Puccini's completion of his next work, Madama Butterfly.
Madama Butterfly:
The original version of "Madama Butterfly" premiered at La Scala on 17 February 1904 with Rosina Storchio in the title role.
It was initially greeted with great hostility (probably largely owing to inadequate rehearsals). When Storchio's kimono accidentally lifted during the performance, some in the audience started shouting: "The butterfly is pregnant" and "There is the little Toscanini".
The latter comment referred to her well publicised affair with Arturo Toscanini.
This version was in two acts; after its disastrous premiere, Puccini withdrew the opera, revising it for what was virtually a second premiere at Brescia in May 1904 and performances in Buenos Aires, London, the US and Paris. In 1907, Puccini made his final revisions to the opera in a fifth version, which has become known as the "standard version".
Presently, the standard version of the opera is the version most often performed around the world. However, the original 1904 version is occasionally performed as well, and has been recorded.
The Italian composer Giacomo Puccini became famous for his operas, which are still among the most frequently performed works in the world. The creation of this great melodist with an incredible feeling for the drama of music and story is considered one of the most emotional probes into the human soul...
The Gold Coin:
The coin includes a special image certificate. The
emission load is only 100 pieces!
Coin Specifications:
Collectors set: Famous
artists
Issuer: Niue Island
Denominational value: $25 (Twenty Five Dollars (NZD)
Designer of the Obverse: MgA.
Petra Čánská
Designer of the Reverse: MgA.
Petra Čánská
Numbered issue: No
Certificate of Authenticity (COA): Standard
Metal Composition: Gold
Fineness: 999,9
Weight: 15.56 g
Diameter/Size: 28.00 mm
Packaging: Black
leather case
Capsule: Yes
Famous Artists Coin Series:
New Seven Wonders of the World:
Maria Theresa:
Links to Mythological Figures/Characters":
Links to "Treasures of ancient Civilisations":
Links to "The Coin Series - The Prehistoric World - The wondrous world of Mesozoic Lizards:
Links to Seven Wonders of the Ancient World:
Links to posts on JAWA Motorcycles on this blog:
Santosh Khanna has commented:
ReplyDelete"A VERY informative and interesting article Thanks for sharing this post."
Thank you so much khanna sahab.
Delete
ReplyDeleteRajan Trikha has commented:
"Wonderful post 👍"
Thank you so much, Trikha sahab.
Delete