The origins of Lucca, in Italian Tuscany, date back to pre-Roman times.
A current vision of the city, modeled in its time by the architect Lorenzo Nottolini, indicates that it survived all those times: more than 4 kilometers of walls still remain, from the Roman ones to the medieval ones, and the definitive ones from the 17th century.
Bridges, churches and squares give it a unique charm.
But if one name placed Lucca on the definitive map of art, it is that of Giacomo Puccini.
His sublime music, his arias, the moving drama of his operas – twelve – place Puccini as one of the greatest exponents of his time.
And of all times.
Puccini died in Brussels, on November 29, exactly a century ago.
Since his triumphant era – only with Manon Lescaut, his third opera, in 1893, did he receive recognition – Puccini was placed on that Olympus.
And his works appear in all the programs.
He doesn't need much more although, the opportunity of the Centennial during 2024 will give new reasons.
The Puccini Festival at the Torre del Lago, in Lucca, will take place in August with the performance of six operas.
The series will end with Turandot, with the curiosity that it will only occur until the moment when Puccini stopped composing it.
Also the classic Verona Arena Festival, between June and August, programmed Turandot – according to the design of Franco Zefirelli – Tosca, with Anna Netrebko as the protagonist, and La Bohéme.
And we also hope for Buenos Aires, a city that Puccini visited in 1905 (and where he was acclaimed) and a city, also, in which his works had an immediate impact.
From those days and until today.
Turandot and goodbye
Puccini's birthplace is today a museum, a must-see for tourists.
Puccini's music is heard in Lucca throughout all seasons, not only in the Tower, but also in the San Giovanni Church, in the Teatro del Giglio and other venues in the city.
It was also there where he began his studies and where he obtained his first position as an organist and color teacher, although his academic training would later take place at the Milan Conservatory.
Another must-see site is its famous Villa Puccini, next to Lake Massaciulleci, current headquarters of the Festival, with its art-nouveau palace.
Although in his last years, Puccini had retired to another similar refuge, in Viareggio.
Also in those years he had concentrated on Turandot, which he imagined as his supreme work: “All the music I composed until now seems like a joke to me in relation to what I am writing at the moment.”
It was going to premiere in April 1925 at La Scala.
But the throat cancer that threatened him also plunged him into his depressive crises and he predicted: “The play will be presented incomplete and someone will advance on the scene to say: at this moment, the maestro has died.”
The bad omen came true.
According to Pola Suárez Urtubey, “Toscanini, so closely linked to the works of Puccini and to whom the musician had entrusted the premiere of Turandot, then entrusted Franco Alfano with the task of completing it based on the notes left by the author.
It was not so easy to access the high peaks that contemplated that Puccinian language of love and death, of happiness and melancholy.”
Turandot premiered on April 25, 1925. And once Liu died, the last page that Puccini had left finished, Toscanini addressed the audience and said: “Here the master's work ends.
He was there when he died…”
In the next function Alfano's ending was added.
Buenos Aires premiered it two months later, at the Colón.