The Puccini Companion

by William Weaver (Editor), Simonetta Puccini (Editor)

The operas of Giacomo Puccini are regularly performed throughout the world, enthusiastically attended by an adoring public. In this book, William Weaver, distinguished writer on musical subjects and translator of Italian prose, joins forces with Simonetta Puccini, granddaughter of the great composer, to bring together a fascinating selection of articles and photographs concerning Puccini's life and works. Simonetta Puccini has contributed as essay full of intimate details about her family; William Weaver addresses the question of Puccini's spectacular talent for dramaturgy. In addition, Julian Budden writes on Puccini's experiences in Lucca and Milan as a young musician, Harvey Sachs explores Puccini's intimate musical relationship with Arturo Toscanini, and Arthur Groos compares the depictions of East-West tensions in the different versions of the libretto for Madama Butterfly. Mary Jane Phillips-Matz describes the creation of La fanciulla del West vis-a-vis the composer's excursions to the United States, Leonardo Pinzauti examines the startling musical language of Il trittico, and William Ashbrook discusses the genesis and early history of La rondine. Michael Kaye considers Puccini's nonoperatic works, and David Hamilton, through a study of early Puccini recording, outlines transitions in performance style from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. This lively and informative collection touches upon all of the master's operas and also offers select bibliographies, a chronology, and a dramatis personae of the countless people who participated in Puccini's career.

Genres: Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1962

About the author

William Fense Weaver is perhaps best known for his translations of the work of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino, and has translated many other Italian writers over the course of a career spanning more than fifty years. In addition to prose, he has translated Italian poetry and opera libretti, and has worked as a critic and commentator on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts.

Born in the U.S. state of Virginia and educated at Princeton University B.A. summa cum laude in 1946, with postgraduate study at the University of Rome in 1949.[2] Weaver was an ambulance driver in Italy during World War II for the American Field Service, and lived primarily in Italy after the end of the war. Through his friendships with Elsa Morante, Alberto Moravia and others, Weaver met many of Italy's leading authors and intellectuals in Rome in the late 1940s and early 1950s; he paid tribute to them in his anthology Open City (1999).

Most recently, Weaver was a professor of literature at Bard College in New York, and a Bard Center Fellow. He received honorary degrees from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and Trinity College in Connecticut. According to translator Geoffrey Brock, Weaver was too ill to translate Umberto Eco's 2005 novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana 2004).