PUCCINI, GIACOMO. (1858-1924). Modern Italy’s most successful opera composer after Verdi. Signed score. (“Giacomo Puccini”). 258pp. 4to. Rome, July, 1921. Casa Ricordi’s 1893 piano vocal score of Manon Lescaut inscribed to Puccini’s lover, German-Jewish soprano ROSE ADER (1890-1955) “…in the hope that she will sing this opera. Affectionately…” In Italian. A later printing stamped on the title page, “Aumento 100%.”
Puccini’s third opera, Manon Lescaut, premiered in Turin to uniformly critical and public acclaim on February 1, 1893. Even the composer was thrilled with the results and “Manon Lescaut transformed Puccini from an unrecognized composer into a respected Maestro of full stature,” (Puccini: A Biography, Phillips-Matz). Ricordi was “closely involved in the operatic career of Giacomo Puccini, with whom the traditional relationship of solidarity between Casa Ricordi and its composers was transformed into a psychological and artistic partnership which went well beyond a mere working relationship,” (Casa Ricordi history).
In 1915, following her debut at the Hamburg Opera, Ader sang at the Vienna State Opera from 1918 to 1919 and returned to Hamburg in 1921, where Puccini first saw her perform in the German première of his Suor Angelica in Hamburg on February 2, 1921. She sang at La Scala and on the stages of Munich, Berlin, and Vienna. However, her career was cut short by the Nazis due to her Jewish heritage, and she eventually immigrated to Buenos Aires.
Puccini had a succession of mistresses many of whom were opera singers. Between 1921 and 1923, he enjoyed what was likely his last romantic fling, falling passionately in love with Ader, for whom he created the part of Liù in his final work, Turandot. “With Turandot Puccini felt that he was moving on to a loftier plane, that an ‘original and perhaps unique work is in the making,’ compared with which all his previous music seemed to him ‘a farce.’ But no other opera cost him so much labour and toil… and no other opera filled him with such strong doubts about his creative powers,” (The New Grove Dictionary). Following his death on November 29, 1924, the opera was finished by Franco Alfano and, instead of Rose Ader, the part of Liù was sung at the April 1926 premiere by Maria Zamboni.
Cover cracked and wear on the edges; the spine possibly restored or replaced. A lovely, late and endearing inscription.
