Puccini: A Biography [Hardcover]

Mary Jane Phillips-Matz (Author), William Weaver (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2002

Descended from four generations of distinguished composers and organists, Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was driven by family tradition and an ambitious mother to pursue a career that brought him worldwide recognition as the greatest composer of Italian opera after Giuseppe Verdi. But behind the brilliant creator of such lasting works as La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La Fanciulla del West, La Rondine, and Turandot, there was a person racked with indecision, self-doubt, bouts of depression, and private misfortunes.

In this beautifully written work, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz brings to life both the man and his circle. Setting Puccini's intriguing story within the worlds of his beloved Tuscany and the cutthroat opera business, the author follows the composer from boyhood in his ancestral Lucca, to his struggling student years at the Milan Conservatory, to his early successes and failures, to the artistic triumphs that earned him international celebrity and considerable wealth.

Filled with colorful details and anecdotes drawn from extensive primary sources as well as interviews with descendents, family friends, and colleagues, the book chronicles Puccini's personal sorrows and scandals, and recounts his stormy professional rivalries and associations in England, Europe, and the United States. Phillips-Matz also skillfully untangles the threads of the gifted artist's complex and contradictory character. She reveals a sophisticated composer who often drew upon exotic thematic material and an elegant cosmopolite who loved his several villas, expensive cars, boats, and fine clothes. Yet Puccini remained passionately wedded to the simple life of the Tuscan countryside of his youth.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The life of Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) has been frequently rehearsed in biographies and sketches, but seldom with the thoroughness that Phillips-Matz, who authored Verdi, the esteemed biography of the other Italian opera master, brings to it. With an intimate knowledge of the Italian scene, a lifetime's experience in writing about opera and interviewing its practitioners, she has unearthed many new documents and letters that help fill out the picture of a composer highly successful in his lifetime but remarkably lacking in self-assurance. Puccini developed early, aided in great measure by his publisher, Ricordi, who invested heavily in him from the start; seldom has an artist owed so much to a helpful businessman. There are those who feel Puccini never matured beyond those perpetual audience-pleasers, La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Tosca, but it was not for lack of trying, and both La Fanciulla del West and Turandot were attempts at larger statements. Puccini's relations with his ever-shifting cast of librettists were always in a state of crisis, and he often seemed unable to convey to them quite what he wanted. His domestic relations were even more chaotic. Married early to a woman who cast an eagle eye on his constant flirtations, Puccini seems often to have been a prisoner in his own home; his wife even drove one imagined paramour to suicide. Infatuated all his life with the glamour of speed, Puccini reveled in fast cars and motorboats, though one car crash nearly killed him; otherwise he loved nothing better than to hunt with country friends in the lonely Florentine marshes. This is an exemplary portrait, casting much new light on a generally shadowy figure. Illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The literature on Puccini continues to grow with these two books. Italian-born Budden (The Operas of Verdi) here synthesizes Puccini's musical endeavors with his life. Using a straightforward, chronological approach, giving exact dates when possible, he treats each opera in a separate chapter, devoting much space to character and plot and citing contemporary reviews and subsequent reception. He also mentions Puccini's other instrumental and vocal compositions. Informed lay readers will gain insight while theoreticians will appreciate Budden's deeper musical analysis. His elegant turns of phrase ("rhythmic scaffolding") and obvious expertise combine in an exceptional whole, though a few Britishisms may confuse American readers. A list of works, useful biographical information on personalities mentioned in the text, and a strong bibliography round out the volume. Michele Girardi's recently translated Puccini: His International Art is similar, with even more specific treatment of musical passages. Highly recommended for academic and music collections, as well as sophisticated clients at public libraries. Phillips-Matz (Verdi: A Biography) discusses Puccini as if she were telling the life story of a valued friend. She remarks on premieres, casts, and critical reception of the works but says little about the music itself. However, she does expand upon the personal issues touched on by Budden (e.g., the Doria Manfredi incident). She also sets a cultural context with historical descriptions of the Tuscan region and extensive information on Puccini's forebears. Her style is stimulating and, for the most part, more entertaining than merely informative. In a rather old-fashioned way, she talks about her own meetings with characters like Puccini's granddaughter, Biki, and singer Gilda Dalla Rizza. Her method of including "footnotes" within the text and abbreviations is helpful; however, one wishes that she had indicated in the introduction the groupings of relevant materials rather than repeating them each time they occurred. She also includes a works list, six major contemporary opera composers and their works, and an up-to-date bibliography. Conrad Wilson's Giacomo Puccini in Phaidon Press's "20th-Century Composers" series makes a good complement, although Phillips-Matz's approach is more genteel and positive. Recommended for all collections. (Indexes and illustrations not seen in either.) Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Northeastern University Press (October 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555535305
• ISBN-13: 978-1555535308
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #850,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Puccini: a restless visionist and revisionist, February 10, 2003

By 

Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Puccini: A Biography (Hardcover)

Having sung in "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly", my interest was piqued when I first heard about Mary Jane Phillips-Matz's wonderful new biography about Giacomo Puccini. Using his operas as chapter divisions, the author gives a firm basis on which to look at Puccini's life as he struggled with his music, his collaborators, his family, his publisher, his singers, Arturo Toscanini and himself.

Restless and constantly on the move was Italy's greatest twentieth-century composer. The composer was not content to stay long in one place, she tells us. He had a house here, a house there; he didn't like this one, he longed to be at yet another one....this was no laboratory musician! Through the sharing of Puccini's letters (and he wrote unceasingly, it seems), Phillips-Matz offers us glimpses into the continual torment the composer faced, either from his own high standards and inabilities to finish projects to the endless revisions of present and past operas on which he was working. Puccini seemed to be under perpetual pressure. The author is careful not to be judgmental about her subect; in fact she includes a surprising number of revealing interviews that she, herself, conducted with singers who had performed Puccini operas and had worked with him in his later life.

Phillips-Matz's book is not so much a book about Puccini's music as it is about process. How did the composer go about choosing texts? What was he feeling when he composed? How did he envision the final outcomes of his operas? The relationships with those who were closest to him are perhaps the best aspects of this book, especially those with his wife and Toscanini. The author almost seems to be encouraging the reader by saying this: "here is what Puccini was like; now go hear his music and see what connections you can make."

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing as a Biography, October 19, 2003

By 

glorybe "gmaurer5" (Somerset, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Puccini: A Biography (Hardcover)

Puccini was reviewed as a wonderful account of Puccini's life and, while the author does tell us the events of his life, this account is less readable than most biographies I've read. She covers the facts of his life in a disjointed fashion. She will bring up a point and then say she will cover it in a later chapter, or she will say she covered it earlier. She arranges the chapters according to the operas he wrote, which is chronological, but the information she writes jumps around so much that it's distracting. The best biographies read as interestingly as the best fiction, and unfortunately this did not measure up. Puccini's life was certainly very interesting and this could have been a great book. Perhaps her editor should have done a better job.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid biography, December 16, 2002

By 

Stanley Hauer (Hattiesburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Puccini: A Biography (Hardcover)

Not as good--or as long--as her Verdi, Phillips-Matz's new bio of Puccini is solid and competent. She is at her best with scenery, at her weakest with the music. Though this biography will not soon replace Mosco Carner, it's worth the purchase price and the reader's time.