普契尼传

Title: Puccini
Author: Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane (1926-2013)
Boston : Northeastern University Press, 2002 
343 p.
Read by: 03/26/2013, Borrowed from WBPL
Genre: Biography


Biography is about history, which is not my favorite subject. The facts and figures I can’t relate to appear dry to me. The principles in writing a biography, to be faithful and honest with facts, limit the power of words and imagination. That’s how the doubt of my capability to finish reading Puccini was quite loud before I picked it up. I let the book sleep for a week or so. Then determinedly, I turned the first page.  Better than I thought. I stumbled, eventually, through the 343 pages in four days, thanks to Puccini’s turmoil life:-) Everything comes with a price tag, struggles followed him like shadows before his rise and during his shining. Every opera of his had a difficult birth, I wonder if the killing process or the throat cancer claimed the life of Puccini . His indecisiveness and self doubt was the well of the long hard torture. (I came to realize the self doubting and the need to be recognized by others is a common disease in layman like me and a big number like Puccini). His golden works are La Boheme, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. Manon Lescaut was before La Boheme, and La Fanciulla del West followed Madama Butterfly, they both are good enough but not his peak. His two other early works and three late works are sitting at the bottom of his bell curve. What I like about this big figure is that he had a gentle and humble heart - so gentle that he could not break any stall concerning his life or work; so humble that he was in agony too often. Shall I say each virtue and vice have two sides? He was also very ready to reconcile for relationship. It is interesting to notice that the composer had a constant need to write what was in his mind. That’s how the countless personal letters filled a great deal of the book. It is a tedious job to track down the documents and put the pieces together. The author must have a passion for opera or she wouldn’t finish this demanding project. I learned Mary Jane spent 30 years researching for her book on Verdi. She published other books on sopranos. She was indeed a writer specialized in opera. My respect goes to Puccini and other artists. I may have gathered enough courage to listen to his full opera.