EVOLUTION OF FEMALE CHARACTERS

IN THE WORK OF GIACOMO PUCCINI

Edith Georgiana ADETU

e-mail: edithadetu@yahoo.com

Abstract: Throughout the history of music, the vision of the historical-

stylistic perspective of the lyrical and dramatic musical genre has suffered
many construction turns, due to various social and political contexts. Thus,
opera music develops along with other arts (literature, painting),
becoming a language accessible to the masses, and supporting the
transposition of the surrounding reality in art. A new music is born, a living
music with a substrate embedded in the ordinary, which will be reflected
in the work of Georges Bizet and Giacomo Puccini and will serve as a basis
for the evolution of opera vocals, giving rise to controversial opera
characters, both from the point of view of the vocal score and from the
point of view of the psychological and theatrical analysis.
Keywords: Puccini, opera, feminine characters, dramatic action

1. Introduction
The end of the nineteenth century marks an important moment in the
history of lyrical art, a moment when Romanticism was fussing about its
existence, leaving room for the artistic phenomenon called Verismo. Verismo
has been portrayed in several hypostases and has been approached from
several artistic sides (from Stendhal’s realism, then by Flaubert, Zola,
Maupassant - especially in its naturalist form, to Auguste Comte’s positivism
and the determinism of Hippolyte Taine in philosophy). The universe
approached by the writers seriously influences the music of some Italian
composers of the late nineteenth century and, to a lesser extent, of those in
France and other countries. It is noteworthy that these authors also relied on

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certain co-ordinates that appeared in the great Italian opera work that
preceded them, especially in Giuseppe Verdi, and they continued to write in
the specific style of the Italian opera school; so their creations proclaim and
accomplish a revival of this genre. The clarity of action in the classical works
and the contrast of action in the romantic works have been replaced in the
Verismo works with real dramas of humanity (despair, cruelty, death).

”As a reaction against post-romantic art precepts, often rooted in surreal,

these composers were falling into the other extreme, too, dealing with the
immediate reality in that poetize events, people, ordinary conflicts,
considered until then without poetic reverberations.”1

2. The Works of Giacomo Puccini. Stylistic Features

ʺLe style, c’est l’homme / The style is the man himselfʺ (Louis
Buffon), the expression of a creator’s personality, partly related to those
areas of the psyche that escape the control of consciousness, and on the
other hand, it is the fruit of intuition, of the artist’s sensitivity, or of a new
aesthetic concept. Up to a point, the style is the result of a conscious process
of assimilation of some procedures of compositional technique and elements
of language, that particular way of organizing sound constructions, musical
language with the complexity of its components.
Giacomo Puccini is the main exponent of a style of opera music
considered at that time uncertain, equivocal, which was labelled by
contemporaneous fellows as a Verismo, a style characterized by a constantly
evolving action, anchored in reality, similar to that in theatre plays and
romantic rhetoric found at Massenet and sometimes at Wagner.
The predilection for objectivism, the choice of characters among
ordinary people, their modest existence, without the intention of rising above
these realities, demonstrates Puccini’s good observer qualities, the ability to
record all behavioural and intonation changes at high emotion moments. The
composer has a pronounced sensibility in building the characters, a taste for
detail, permanently aiming at the unity of the dramatic text and the music, the
dramaturgy of the text being the one that determines the ethos and the shape
of the arias. ”Puccini makes a true drama, often symphonising theorchestral
tessitura that draws out stronger tense.”2

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 The direct, spontaneous, accessible nature of his musical language, the
complete knowledge of the physiology of voices and technique of musical
instruments, the intention to give a truthful interpretation to the topic, the
force of declamation without being preoccupied by the vocal effects, realistic
vigour, musical poetics, grading of dramatic tensions, are all what
characterizes Puccini’s works.1

3. The Theme in Puccini’s Works

Being in Milan during his training as a musician, Puccini discovers the
gap between misery and wealth, the exorbitant luxury in contrast to the
poverty at the outskirts: poor people, broken destinies, no ideals, no future.
All these contradictions marked the young composer, who later, in a letter to
his editor, Giulio Ricordi, recognized his exigencies in relation to the librettos
that would support his vision of artwork: the immediate reality, strong states
of mind of the librettists whom he worked with, imposing a new attitude
towards the genre of musical theatre, a natural, close logic of the dramatic
construction.
His librettos reveal the composer’s concern for real, concrete facts, for
social realities, with a great taste for details. The social inequalities, the
miserable condition of the many, the wickedness of the peers, the
indifference, the abuse of power, the brutal force of despotism, the falsity of
morality, the thirst for enrichment, all inspired the plots that, on the one hand,
painted those times through specific aspects, at the same time demonstrating
the composer’s involvement in the fate of his characters and the importance
given to the libretto.

”Puccini achieves a degree of compassion and terseness as well as a

close correlation between means and end [...] the structure of melodies is
more balanced and symmetrical [...] there is an organic coherence and a
marked preference for using a few themes in their entirety instead of a
multiplicity of brief figures.”3

1 PASCU, G., BOȚOCAN, M., Carte de Istoria Muzicii, Vasiliana 98, 2012, pag. 475
2Ibidem, pag. 477
3 Carner, M., Puccini. A Critical Biography, London, 1992, pag. 424

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 In the evolution of the Italian melodrama, Puccini’s first opera, ʺLe
Villiʺ brings a new inspiration, which explains the success achieved at the
opening. Inspired by traditional legends, the first representation took place
on May 31st, 1884 in Milan, at ʺTeatro dal Vermeʺ. The atmosphere filled
with social problems of the popular masses, the change in the mentalities
due to the Risorgimento’s disquietudes leads to the orientation of leading
national literature representatives to realistic traditions. Thus, for the next
opera, ʺEdgarʺ, Puccini appeals to the librettist Ferdinando Fontana, which
will have as his starting point the theatre play in lyrics ʺLa Coupe et les
Lèvresʺ by Alfred de Musset. The text has many correspondences with that
of ʺCarmenʺ by George Bizet: a confused young man (Edgar/Don José)
whose struggle is between the innocent love for a girl in his hometown
(Fidelia/Micaëla) and the consuming passion for a Gypsy (Tigrana/
Carmen).
For the second opera, Puccini directs his attention to the drama
ʺManon Lescautʺ, not taking into account the existing approaches of the
topic, some of them enjoying general recognition: Daniel Auber in 1856 and
Jules Massenet in 1884. The opening of Manon Lescaut takes place at the
Teatro Regio in Turin on February 1 st, 1893. Puccini will collaborate with
the librettists Domenico Oliva, Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa and Giulio
Ricordi, treating the female character Manon in a different way: a delicate
woman, with aspirations and ideals, but crushed by social inequities, and a
victim of her own roots, education and prejudice. The literary theme, though
old, was resumed by Alexandre Dumas the Son in ʺLa Dame aux Caméliasʺ
(literally ʺThe Lady with the Camelliasʺ), inspiring Verdi for the libretto of
the opera ʺTraviataʺ. If Violetta Valery proves a rare soul nobility and power
of sacrifice in the name of love, at the end of work she being morally saved,
rising above all who did not understand her, Manon will remain the slave to
her own limits and education, the passion for luxury, dresses and jewels
being fatal to her. Not even the sincere and deep love of the young Des
Grieux can save her. The courage to address this subject, the eternal human
drama of love and death, reveals the passionate and dramatic spirit of his
music. The success was triumphant, with the Puccinian genius being
unanimously recognised. ʺScènes de la vie de bohèmeʺ, the novel by Henri
Murger, will inspire the librettists Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica the
libretto of the opera ʺLa bohèmeʺ. The opening took place at the Regio
Theater in Turin in 1896.

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 4. Female Characters in Giacomo Puccini’s Work
The heroines of Puccini’s works require careful psychological
analysis, being complex characters to be investigated beyond appearances,
the way they manifest in the context of the work.

”[...] those womens are immortal symbols of those absolute values that are
the foundation of any society at any time, values that only a woman can
incarnate without running the risk of being able to have an ulterior
motive.”4

The miserable condition of intellectuals and artists in the early

nineteenth-century Parisian society (to 1830) determines the four friends,
Rodolfo (poet), Marcello (painter), Schaunard (musician), Colline (philosopher),
poor dreamers striving to remain honest in the midst of all kinds of indigence,
to show imagination to be able to live. Mimì and Musette are totally opposed
tempers, the first gentle, tender, melancholic, modest, shy, the second
temperamental, capricious but at the same time sensitive, altruistic, human.
Musette is a survivor, while Mimì is defeated by illness, society and her own
feelings that she does not deal with. The grace of Puccini’s music, the romantic
ambition, poetic charm, melodic generosity, sensitivity, tenderness and
lyricism make the entire opera an emotional love poem, 23a model of musical
technique, continuing the spirit of the Italian lyrical melodrama. A good 4
psychologist, penetrating the essence of the libretto, knowing the art of realistic
creators to recreate typical typologies and events, Puccini uses the recitative
that highlights the simplicity, the naturalness of ordinary speech. The
characters do not sing all the time, they talk, laugh, shout, use expressive
silence, healthy humour, the sparkle verve of the orchestra, the details of
everyday life, Puccini discovering poetry in small things.
After a long hesitation, Puccini decides to address a theme different
from that of the works so far: the atmosphere of the Roman republic since
1800 in social terms and its strong characters and dramatic conflicts in the
field of human issues. ”[…] for in this Tosca I see the opera I need, one whose
proportions are not excessive, either as performance or as something giving
rise to the usual superabundance of music.”5

4 MECENATE, S., Le Donne di Puccini, Revista Sinestesie, 2014

5 GARA, E., Carteggi Pucciniani, Casa Ricordi, 1958, pag. 31

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 The heroine, Floria Tosca, keeps her soul purity in an arrogant,
vicious, unfair world, fighting for her dream of happiness with unswerving
will and strength of character. Together with her lover Mario Cavaradossi,
they will be crushed by Scarpia despot’s tyranny without limit. The scene of
Scarpia’s death, despicable, bigot, abject, aggressive, ʺkilled by a womanʺ (e
ucciso da una donna) is a tremendous drama, the composer imagining and
rendering through music the smallest detail, the cues being spoken, shouted,
accompanied by scenic effects. Tosca fulfils an act of personal and collective
justice in an attempt to save herself with her boyfriend, an act of justice
dictated by her impetuous temperament, sense of honour, freedom, which
makes her capable of an extreme gesture. Floria Tosca is not a passive but
complex character, is not just a woman in love, jealous of everything
surrounding Mario Cavaradossi, she is capable of sacrifice in the name of love.
She does not make compromises, she does not kill in the name of love, her
gesture having profound meanings, Floria Tosca representing the symbol of
Italy liberated, performing an act of revenge of the countless victims of the
Habsburg imperial tyranny. Puccini’s masterpiece provides a complex picture
of the synthesis of the Verdian tradition and Verismo, combining sentimental
lyricism with the heroic-tragic accents of the theatrical performance, the
confrontation of temperaments being accomplished with an artistically
difficult to even skill.
ʺMadame Butterflyʺ sends us into a world of Japanese culture with
traditions and customs that were not fully understood at that time. At the base
of the work’s libretto, there was John Luther Long’s short novel, published in
Century Magazine in 1897, inspired by a real occurrence, as well as Pierre
Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème novel, published in 1887, both dealing with a
similar topic. In order to highlight the difference in culture and lifestyle, the
discrepancy between the two worlds amid the penetration of the American
capitalism in Japan, Puccini uses a musical language that disorientates the
ordinary audience with its inexhaustible melodics. Dense modulations,
passages with delayed resolutions, chromatic tensions, and leitmotiv
technique, all of these elements create the impression of an uninterrupted,
lively lyrical speech. Puccini loved his character; he studied thoroughly the
Japanese traditional music and way of life, using the onomatopoeic
alliterations, the timbral speculation of the orchestra, the means of
polyphony, the Puccinian recitative and the arioso, which bring a crumb of the
Orient on stage. A fine psychologist, Puccini conceives with refinement all
oriental rituals, everyday graciousness, to enhance the characters’ veracity.

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However, the folkloric quotations inserted represent arrangements of the
original works, so that the sound atmosphere of the work is indisputably
Italian. Cio-Cio-San is the victim of the contradiction between two worlds, of
two opposing moral and social concepts, dedicating his life to love, rising
above religious and caste prejudices, breaking any connection with her family
but defeated by the betrayal of the superficial American lieutenant and
adventurer. ”She ceases to simper, to play the Japanese doll, and becomes a
forceful, stubborn, brave woman […]”.6 Like most feminine characters, the
heroine ends tragically, not having the power to change her destiny.
The famous Puccinian Triptych is made up of three works in an act.
First, ʺIl Tabarroʺ, the libretto of Giuseppe Adami after Didier Gold’s La
Houppelande drama, brings to the foreground the quays of the Seine, with its
longshoremen and their inhabitants and their humble existence, the real life
subtlety embodied in some representative figures. The way of living of the
people in the river ports, Giorgette’s romantic aspirations, blinded by the
lights of Paris, her dreams of escaping are built by Puccini in a dramatic
progression, balanced by Seine’s flawless flow. The dramaturgy of the work is
revolving around a unique idea, represented by the inexorable passage of
time, metaphorically incarnated during the sunset, in the autumn
atmosphere, and especially in the untouched flow of the river, around which
the whole action develops. The idea of temporality is reflected in the use of
measures with a ternary structure, whose circular motion leads the
protagonists to the tragedy wrapped in the mantle of a dancing eroticism, ”
[...]‘a piece almost to worth to rank with some of Verdi’s baritone or bass
arias’’.7 The words of the protagonist - ʺIo capisco una musica sola: quella5 che
fa danzareʺ (I know a single music: the one that makes me dance), are
accompanied by the same melodic line that opens the duet of love between
Giorgietta and Luigi.
ʺSuor Angelicaʺ is the second opera of the Triptych and is the only
Puccinian opera based on female characters only. The action takes place in
a monastery at the end of the seventeenth century, the main character, an
exiled nun after a forbidden love, is confronted with the drama of an
unaccomplished maternity, with the image of the child lost at birth, the
news of his death generating the psychological conflict between suicide and
penance. The work was considered less convincing from the theatrical and

6 WEAVER, W., The Puccini Companion, W.W. Norton & Company, 2000, pag, 117
7 CORNER, M., Puccini. A Critical Biography, London, 1992, pag. 464

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musical point of view, although it was one of the composer’s favourite
creations.
With ʺGianni Schichiʺ, Puccini ends the Triptych, proving an
indisputable artistry in making a sparkling comedy. The action of the opera
takes place in Florence in 1299, the work distinguishing from among
Puccini’s creations through the mastery of portraits, the melodic inspiration
and the way of treating the polyphonic art. The character of Gianni Schichi
is inspired by Dante’s ʺInfernoʺ (Chant XXX), where he serves his blame for
being lied and cheated. The witty character had a special fame in Florence
in the thirteenth century because of his extraordinary gift to imitate the
voice and gestures of others. This old medieval theme is transferred to the
present, the image of the great Florentine bourgeoisie in Trecento, the race
for the Melodrama in an act, to the libretto of Giovacchino Forzano, whose
opening took place on December 14 th, 1918 at the New York Metropolitan
Opera. Performed on December 14 th, 1918 at the New York Metropolitan
Opera, the libretto also belonging to Giovacchino Forzano, where the
enrichment, after luxury and light life illustrating political and social
realities, the return to the artistic traditions of the Italian people and the
rebellion against the tyranny of money. Trying to revive the tradition of the
nineteenth century buffa, by the subtle laughter, the spiritual irony, the
illustrative but true images, by the realistic beauty of the opera and the
portrayal of characters, by addressing in the most authentic style the
ʺcommedia dell’arteʺ, Puccini has made a masterpiece of the genre, a new
transposition into the hypostasis of some moral and social issues since that
moment treated in a tragic manner. The last Puccinian creation, left
unfinished by the disappearance of the master, was completed and finished
by his student Francesco Alfano.
In ʺTurandotʺ, Puccini performs the synthesis of the Italian work of
over a hundred years, combining the romantic strand with the novelties of
beginning of the century. Relying on an ancient Chinese legend about the
overcoming of the arrogant temper of Princess Turandot by the lucky Prince
Calaf, the one who ignoring her cruelty manages to melt her icy heart through
the warmth of his love, the work is an impressive masterpiece. ”Even her
father urges her to withdraw because he does not want to see more deaths.
Wilson labeled Turandot as a “machine woman” with “obscure and
immovable state of the mind”[...]”.8
The fairy atmosphere, the monumental scenes, the strange sounds,
everything is based on a complex symphonic vision. An artist who is concerned

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with the true illustration of the reality, Puccini has been preoccupied with
thorough documentation, studying Chinese pentatonic songs, specific tone
colours of some of the old Asian musical instruments, costumes, and bizarre
ceremonies. The musical means of illustrating local colour are closely related to
the real aspects of the framework in which the action takes place. ‘‘It is because
of Turandot that I feel like a lost soul [...] that second act! I cannot find a way
out,’’ […] wrote Puccini”.9 Thus, he assigns an active role to the choir, which is
no longer an amorphous mass commenting on the events of drama, but
represents the supreme judgement of the people, being in a constant conscious
movement and becoming a main, active character. Also, the use of the effects of
percussion instruments, including the Chinese gong, the brass, the use of
shocking climax of shades, the tone colour contrasts, the voices of children
singing a genuine Chinese song of bocca chiusa, the movement of leitmotifs, the
semantics of dissonant intervals, the introduction of an intermezzo when
dramaturgy requires a change in tension focus, while pursuing the unity and
logical sequence of events, all these means together construct an overwhelming
lyrical and dramatic discourse through the power of transmitting images, ideas
and feelings.6

5. Conclusions
In the context of Giacomo Puccini’s 12 works, seven of them take as
title the names of the main female characters, with the composer devoting
them all his attention and creative talent. The composer aims at the musical
and psychological portrayal, doubled by a subtle analysis, being concerned
with the design of a musical language that absolutely illustrates the drama of
the characters.

”It is precisely because of their degraded position that he was able to

fall in love with his heroines, display such extraordinary empathy with them
and achieve so complete an identification with their personalities. For them
he wrote his most inspired, poetic and poignant music”.10

8 WILSON, A., Modernism and the machine women in Puccini’s Turandot, Music & Letters,
2005
9 BUDDEN, J., Puccini: His Life and Works, Oxford University Press, 2002, pag.427

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 The edifice of Puccini’s work is based on two primordial components,
the orchestra and the characters, the numbers (arias, duets, tercets, orchestral
intermezzi) representing the space for the realization of the dramatic conflict.
In the ancient monody, the Greek declamation, the Gregorian song, the
polyphonic style, the opera show as well as all other vocal genres, the main
preoccupation of the creators of all time was the intertwining of the act of
speech with that of singing. The structure of Puccini’s works is based on
tradition, thematic and dramatic emphasis of characters, constituents with a
prominent presence in the creation of Giuseppe Verdi, the shaping of the
characters through a new interpretation and vocal style that differs from the
Old Italian school and the bel canto technique.

”Puccini felt unconsciously that his heroines were in some way rivals
of the exalted mother-image. He may even have identified them with it to
some extent, so that loving them carried with it an incestuous implication.
But as his conscious mind could never allow the admission of such a
forbidden desire, it had to be repressed, though the “guilt” remained but
was now transferred from himself to his heroines.”11

At the same time, the dramatic vocal declamation and leitmotifs will
give force and credibility to Puccinian heroines. Puccinian melodics, symphonic
construction, the extent of musical phrases, the impetuosity, and the dramatism
of sound culminations claim to the performer a strong artistic personality,
putting its vocal value in the forefront. The singer-actor, in addition to
distinguished acting qualities, must be the owner of a full, sonorous, beautiful,
technically coloured voice, perfectly mastering his/her breathing energy,
anticipating and becoming aware of his/her vocal and interpretive gesture. The
lirico-spinto voice style, which is homogeneous in all registers, best matches the
characters image, having to cope with the Puccinian style and the orchestra with
which it is constantly related, distinguishing between Puccini’s musical speech
and Wagner’s lyrical declamation.
The style of the epoch, of the composer, the musical genre, or even the
type of character bill requires a certain type of voice emission. Always the
voice serves the composer’s score and intentions.

”From his student days Puccini had determined to cut his own way
through the various influences that impinged on Italian opera during its years
of uncertainty, forging a language that is instantly recognizable [...] permitting

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 the assimilation of contemporary elements into a sturdy, developing organism
[...] At the same time [the] 7 popular trilogy [...] sits comfortably within the
tradition of the ‘giovane scuola’ which, as he himself pointed out, Puccini had
helped to found and which he eventually outgrew.”12

In the vocal realization of Puccini’s characters, homogeneity is

required over the whole vocal range, types of voices with special vocal
strength, fair intonation, very good diction, well-metered and coordinated
breathing, and the ability to convey to the audience the entire emotional
load of states and experiences, the dramatic performance of the score. The
relationship between the artist and the score, the orchestra, the stage
partners, the conductor, the director, the audience, calls the lyrical artist
first of all qualitative, convincing vocal and diction, and the one who makes
use of it has to dominate his/her stage fright, fatigue, shyness, vocal effort,
overall effort, in a nervous, cardiac, glandular, and cerebral manner.
Puccini’s vocal-scenic requirements define, in fact, the Verismo verbal
female vocal type.

References
[1] BUDDEN, J., „Puccini: His Life and Works”, Oxford University Press, 2002.
[2] CARNER, M., „Puccini.A Critical Biography”, London, 1992.
[3] GARA, E., „Carteggi pucciniani”, Casa Ricordi, 1958.
[4] MECENATE, S., „Le Donne di Puccini”
http://www.rivistasinestesie.it/ARCHIVIO/parole_musica/donne_puccini.p
df.
[5] PASCU, G., BOȚOCAN, M., ”Carte de Istorie a Muzicii”, Vasiliana 98, 2012.
[6] WILSON, A., „Modernism and the machine woman in Puccini’sTurandot”. Music &
Letters, 2005.
[7] WEAVER, W., „The Puccini Companion”, W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.

10 CARNER, M., Puccini. A Critical Biography, London, 1992, pag. 303

11Ibidem,
pag. 304
12 BUDDEN, J., Puccini: His Life and Works, Oxford University Press, 2002, pag. 478

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