Music History Monday25 Apr 2022

Music History Monday: Puccini’s Turandot: An Opera That Almost Wasn’t

We mark the premiere performance on April 25, 1926 – 96 years ago today – of Giacomo Puccini’s twelfth and final opera, Turandot. The premiere took place at Milan’s storied La Scala opera house and was conducted by Puccini’s friend (and occasional nemesis!) Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957). At the time of the premiere, Puccini himself had been dead for 17 months. And therein lies our tale. Because given the delays in creating the libretto for Turandot, Puccini’s failing health, his leaving the opera incomplete at his death, and the controversy surrounding Turandot’s subsequent completion by the composer Franco Alfano (1875-1954), it was indeed an opera that almost didn’t happen. Giacomo Puccini was born in the Tuscan city of Lucca on December 22, 1858, and died in Brussels, Belgium on November 29, 1924, three weeks shy of his 66th birthday. Puccini’s operas remain among the most popular in the repertoire, but among the most critically controversial as well. It is a controversary we will not discuss in this post; rather, I’d direct you to Music History Monday for January 14, 2019. That post - on Puccini’s opera Tosca - wades chin-deep into the critical issues that continue to dog his work.… See the full transcript, photos, and listen without ads, only on Patreon (starting at just $2/month): https://www.patreon.com/posts/65600387 See the latest Robert Greenberg Courses on sale at https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/sale

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Episoder(120)

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Music History Monday: Serge Pavlovich Diaghilev

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19 Aug 202418min

Music History Monday: Giovanni Gabrieli and the Miracle That is Venice!

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12 Aug 202422min

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5 Aug 202422min

Music History Monday: Cass Elliot and the Making of an Urban Legend

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29 Jul 202418min

Music History Monday: Shake, Rattle, and Roll

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22 Jul 202410min

Music History Monday: An Indispensable Person

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15 Jul 202424min

Music History Monday: What’s in a Name?

We mark the birth on July 8, 1935 – 89 years ago today – of the American Grammy and Emmy Award-winning singer, actor, and comedian Steve Lawrence, in Brooklyn, New York. He died just four months ago,...

8 Jul 202417min