The operas of Giacomo Puccini are among the most performed of our day. What makes his operas so enormously popular?

In the last decade of the 19th century, as Giuseppe Verdi was premiering his final opera, Italian opera went in a new direction, defined by the school of verismo. This musical style employed less formally structured melody and focused on subjects of everyday life in the form of intense—often melodramatic—love stories. And Puccini, with his passionate, evocative music, was its greatest exponent.

This course examines five of Puccini's best works, ones seldom out of the performance repertoire: Manon Lescaut, La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot. Selections from these operas are studied for their distinctive lyricism and melody. Different performances of the same selection are contrasted in order to understand variations in style and interpretation by artists. A brief biographical presentation of Puccini is interwoven with the music.