Author: LaLaItalia

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy on December 22, 1858 and died November 29, 1924.  From 1891 onwards, Puccini spent most of his time at Torre del Lago, a small community about fifteen miles from Lucca situated between the Ligurian Sea and Lake Massaciuccoli, just south of Vaireggio. While renting a house there, he spent time hunting, but regularly visited Lucca.  By 1900, he had acquired land and built a villa on the lake, now known as the “Villa Museo Puccini.” He lived there until 1921, when pollution produced by peat works on the lake forced him to move to Viareggio, a few kilometers north. After his death, a mausoleum was created in the Villa Puccini and the composer is buried there in the chapel, along with his wife and son who died later.

Puccini’s villa has been transformed into a museum. The rooms are well preserved and contain Puccini  heirlooms including the piano on which he composed some of his most famous operas. In a chapel room inside the house there are the sepulchres of  Puccini, his wife and son, and in another room his shotguns are preserved.  The Villa Museo Puccini is presently owned by his granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini, and is open to the public.  It is well worth a visit!

Operas written at Torre del Lago;

Manon Lescaut (1893), his third opera, was his first great success. It launched his remarkable relationship with the librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, who collaborated with him on his next three operas, which became his three most famous and most-performed operas. These were:

La bohème (1896) is considered one of his best works as well as one of the most romantic operas ever composed. It is together with Tosca one of today’s most popular operas.

Tosca (1900) was arguably Puccini’s first foray into verismo, the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence. The opera is generally considered of major importance in the history of opera because of its many significant features.

Madama Butterfly (1904) was initially greeted with great hostility (mostly organized by his rivals) but, after some reworking, became another of his most successful operas.

La fanciulla del West (1910) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto  by Guelfo Civinni and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco.

La rondine (1916) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Heinz Reichert.

Il trittico (1918) is composed of three one-act operas: a horrific episode (Il tabarro), in the style of the Parisian Grand Guignol, a sentimental tragedy (Suor Angelica), and a comedy (Gianni Schicchi). Of the three, Gianni Schicchi has remained the most popular, containing the popular aria “O mio babbino caro“.  The work received its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on December 14, 1918.

 

 

 

Inaugurated in 1956, the Pinocchio Park is no ordinary theme park, but rather a precious masterpiece        created by artists of great character working together. The literary itinerary, marked out by mosaics, buildings and sculptures set amidst the greenery, emerges from an inspired combination of art and nature. The path is winding, and the dense vegetation means that every stage on the route comes as an unexpected surprise, with the very plants and trees contributing to create the atmosphere and the episodes in the story of the Adventures of Pinocchio. The Park itself is the site of constantly renewed cultural activities that are always mindful of its roots: exhibitions of art and illustrations inspired by children’s literature and the Story of Pinocchio, puppet-making workshops, puppet and marionette shows and minstrels enliven the visit to the Park, depending on the season.

The Pinocchio Park could not have been set up anywhere else but in Collodi, where the ancient village has remained as it was hundreds of years ago, a cascade of houses that ends behind Villa Garzoni and its scenographic Garden. It was here that Carlo Lorenzini’s mother was born, and here that he spent his childhood with his grandparents, the Orzali. This is no ordinary theme park, but rather an evocative precious masterpiece created by great artists working together where we can retrace a tale that comes to life through the encounter between the images expressed in the symbolic language of art and the visitor’s own imagination. The resulting enjoyment is spontaneous and natural, thanks to the beauty of the art and the surroundings. The original idea for the monumental complex came to the Mayor of Pescia, Professor Rolando Anzilotti, in 1951. Consequently he set up the Committee for the Monument to Pinocchio and invited leading artists to enter the competition. No less than eighty-four sculptors responded to the invitation: the joint winners were Emilio Greco with Pinocchio and the Fairy and Venturino Venturini with the Square of the Mosaics. In 1956 the famous bronze group that symbolically represents the metamorphosis of Pinocchio, and the extraordinary mosaics showing the principal episodes from the Adventures were unveiled in an area  designed by the architects Renato Baldi and Lionello De Luigi. In 1963 came the Osteria del Gambero Rosso, housing the restaurant of the same name, designed by Giovanni Michelucci, with red bays that recall the pincers of the crab; in 1972 the Park was enlarged by the addition of the Land of Toys, a fantastic itinerary stretching over a hectare of Mediterranean maquis, designed by Pietro Porcinai and hosting twenty-one sculptures in bronze and steel by Pietro Consagra and constructions by Marco Zanuso, evoking the plot of the Adventures. Finally, in 1987, came the “Laboratory of Words and Figures”, designed and created by Carlo Anzilotti to an idea by  Giovanni Michelucci.