Chapter 16 - Puccini’s Theatrical Vision

Summary

This chapter considers the ways in which Puccini’s works were staged during his lifetime, with a close focus upon the composer’s own vision of how his operas should look. Puccini was keenly involved with the visual representation of his works on stage and always strove to be as ‘authentic’ as possible in reproducing the locales being depicted. This chapter draws upon the composer’s correspondence to demonstrate how proactive Puccini was in every aspect of the performance of his works. We find Puccini complaining about stage designs for his works and suggesting improvements, as well as suggesting novel scenographic approaches to make a work more effective for the viewer. Puccini was also extremely keen to maintain aspects of staging and direction used in some of the source plays upon which his operas had been based. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the various extant sources that document Puccini’s staging intentions.