![]() ![]() Whether you visit in person or solely through Puccini’s music, the Eternal City’s lures are just as strong as the tempestuous and sensual diva’s, but if you time a visit right, you might just be able to attend a performance of Tosca, before experiencing the opera’s locations. Tosca premiered in January of 1900 at Opera di Roma, within walking distance of each act’s landmarks, and Rome itself plays a central role in the plot. Puccini’s greatest Italian opera, however, is Tosca, whose events all take place in real buildings that can still be visited today. Original posters from Tosca, Gianni Schicchi and La Bohème ![]() If you find Florence’s appeal as irresistible as Puccini’s music, be sure to plan a musical experience to enhance your visit. Opportunities abound to experience Puccini’s music in Florence or Tuscany – often within walls infused with history. ![]() Gianni Schicchi creates a musical picture of Florence that is impossible to ignore, extolling the city’s virtues and charms, as well as her vices, while Suor Angelica brings to life another constant of Italian life – the sounds of the great religious houses of Siena. Moving rapidly away from the medieval and unfamiliar settings of his early operas, Puccini began to adhere to the authorly maxim “write what you know” with spectacular results, and modern Italian opera was born. The continent gave birth to Puccini and to opera itself, not to mention most of the stories Puccini set to music, and the daily life of Europe’s capitals and greatest cities cast its spell over the young Italian. The Old World is the natural place to begin. Europe’s greatest cities, the mysterious exoticism of the Orient, the American Wild West and Deep South… the Grand Tour of an aristocrat, or the extraordinary vision of the man who was both Italy’s last great Romantic and it’s first great Modern? Giacomo Puccini takes his audiences on their own grand tour, offering the armchair traveller – and those brave enough to venture further afield – the chance to indulge in a little escapism through music, visiting Rome, Old Peking, Nagasaki, New Orleans, Florence, and Paris. ![]()
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