Born in Lucca, Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858-29 November 1924) belonged to the fifth generation of an illustrious family of musicians. He studied at the Milan Conservatory where he was exposed to the music of Massenet, Gounod, Bizet and Wagner.

His first opera, Le Willis (1884), was submitted unsuccessfully to the Sonzogno publishing firm’s competition for one-act operas but was staged at Milan’s Teatro dal Verme under the support of publisher Giulio Ricordi; an expanded two-act version soon premiered at the Teatro alla Scala.

Although Puccini’s follow-up Edgar (1889) had a mixed success, the premiere of Manon Lescaut (1893) at Turin’s Teatro Regio launched him internationally as the obvious heir to Verdi. The three operas that followed – La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904) – would soon become established as cornerstones of the modern operatic repertory, notable for their rich attention to musical scene setting, sophisticated use of Wagnerian leitmotifs and a highly flexible musical language that still placed structural weight on magnificent arias. The public and critical failure of Madama Butterfly at its world premiere nonetheless coincided with a broader period of personal and professional crisis.

His remaining operas would, with one posthumous exception, all receive their world premieres outside Italy. They also reflected an increasingly experimental approach on Puccini’s part, engaging ever more closely with contemporary musical and theatrical trends including the music of Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Lehár and popular song. La fanciulla del West (1910) and Il trittico (1918) both premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York while La rondine (1917) debuted at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.

Puccini died in Brussels in November 1924 while completing the last act of Turandot, an adaptation of Carlo Gozzi. Premiered by Puccini’s long-time collaborator Arturo Toscanini in Milan in 1926, the finale was completed by Franco Alfano while the modernist composer Luciano Berio offered an alternative completion in 2002.

Opera Rara’s Puccini catalogue includes the world premiere recordings of the original one-act version of Le Willis (ORC59) and the final, 1921 version of La rondine (ORC66)