MSO: Puccini in the Park

Soprano Natalie Aroyan and tenor Paul O'Neill join conductor Benjamin Northey and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl for an outdoor summer concert of sumptuous Puccini arias.

Giacomo Puccini was destined to be a musician from the very get-go. His composer great-grandfather was appointed as the organist at Lucca's San Martino Cathedral (in the western region of Tuscany) in 1740, a post that was past down through to three generations of the family. When Giacomo's father died when the boy was only six years old, the city fathers issued a decree that the job would be past on to the youngster when he was old enough to take on the daily duties of playing at church services.

After completing early training as a composer, the teenage Puccini experienced what was to prove an event of cataclysmic proportions: he attended a performance of the opera "Aida" by Italy's premiere opera composer. Giuseppe Verdi's music left him in a trace, and it was then and there he decided to turn his back on the family tradition of writing liturgical music and, thanks to a scholarship from Queen Margherita and support from a kindly uncle, headed for Milan to study in that Mecca of Italian opera. After writing a handful of nascent musical dramas which gained little traction, the 1893 premiere of his opera "Manon Lescaut" announced Puccini's arrival on the operatic stage as a major talent. "Puccini looks to me more like the heir to Verdi than any of his rivals", trumpeted the famous Irish playwright and music critic George Bernard Shaw. One might imagine Puccini being tickled pink to be compared favourably to his hero, already revered as a national treasure by Italian music-lovers.

What makes Puccini's characters, whether it be the love- and physically sick Mimi in "La Bohémé" or the jilted lover Cio-Cio-San in Madame Butterfly, so endearing? Surely it is Puccini's gift for writing a profusion of melodies that are equally as beautiful as they are memorable. "Without melody, fresh and poignant", this composer proclaimed, "there can be no music." Puccini heightens their dramatic poignancy by clothing them in sumptuous orchestral sounds influenced by German Romantic-era composers and, later on, the tone-painting of French composers, especially Claude Debussy, which ultimately creates music of infinite delight and indulgence that makes your heart ache.

Recorded live in concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Arts Centre Melbourne, Narrm/Melbourne, on February 21, 2024 by ABC Classic. Presenter Mairi Nicolson. Producers Duncan Yardley and Jamie Mills. Engineers Alex Stinson, Brendan O'Neill and Russell Thomson.

Program

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon: Long time living here arr. Luke Speedy-Hutton
Giacomo Puccini: Manon Lescaut: Intermezzo to Act III
Giacomo Puccini: Turandot: “Nessun dorma”
Giacomo Puccini: Manon Lescaut: “Sol perduta abbandonata”
Giacomo Puccini: Tosca: “Vissi d’arte”
Giacomo Puccini: Tosca: “E lucevan le stelle”
Giacomo Puccini: Tosca: “Mario! Mario!”
Giacomo Puccini: Cristantemi
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème: “Che gelida manina”
Giacomo Puccini: Madama Butterfly: Intermezzo
Giacomo Puccini: Madama Butterfly: “Un bel di”
Giacomo Puccini: Madama Butterfly: “Viene la sera”

Artists

Natalie Aroyan (soprano)
Paul O'Neill (tenor)
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Benjamin Northey (conductor)