Origins
The Puccini Festival was started in 1930 following what is believed to have been Puccini’s comment to friend Giovacchino Forzano, one of his librettists, in 1924 just before he left for the clinic in Brussels for his throat operation: "I always come out here and take a boat to go and shoot snipes … but once I would like to come here and listen to one of my operas in the open air." The composer was thought to be expressing the hope that his operas would be performed in the extraordinary natural stage offered by the Massaciuccoli Lake. However, this is disputed by his granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini.
Nevertheless, on 24 August 1930, together with Pietro Mascagni, who had been fellow student of Puccini’s, Forzano produced the first performances of a Puccini opera on the lake shore, in front of the Maestro’s house. In a provisional theatre, the Carro di Tespi Lirico with its stage built on piles stuck in the lake, a travelling opera company performed La Bohème directed by Forzano and conducted by Mascagni. The same company came back in 1931 when Beniamino Gigli and Adelaide Saraceni performed in La bohème, while Rosetta Pampanini and Angelo Michetti performed Madama Butterfly. This was the beginning of what was to become a major opera festival.
However, in the years before 1949, due to the political and financial climate, there was only one presentation—in 1937—and that was a concert. Returning in 1949 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Puccini's death, the Festival re-opened with La fanciulla del West and continued into the 1950s with many of the composer's most well known works.
Read more about this topic: Festival Puccini
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