Politics
Unlike Verdi, Puccini did not appear to be active in the politics of his day. He wrote to a friend that he supported Benito Mussolini at first; Mussolini also made Puccini a senator shortly before the latter's death. Puccini's 1919 Inno a Roma (Hymn to Rome), although not written for the Fascists, was widely played during Fascist street parades and public ceremonies. However, evidence that Puccini was actually a member of the Fascist party is equivocal.
Read more about this topic: Giacomo Puccini
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“The [nineteenth-century] young men who were Puritans in politics were anti-Puritans in literature. They were willing to die for the independence of Poland or the Manchester Fenians; and they relaxed their tension by voluptuous reading in Swinburne.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“One might imagine that a movement which is so preoccupied with the fulfillment of human potential would have a measure of respect for those who nourish its source. But politics make strange bedfellows, and liberated women have elected to become part of a long tradition of hostility to mothers.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)