PUCCINI, Giacomo, letters, autographs, documents, manuscripts



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PUCCINI, Giacomo (1858-1924). Italian opera-composer.
Fine Autograph Music Quotation Signed of five bars (treble clef) from La Rondine, on one page 8vo (oblong), dated 1917. A particularly clean and attractive example (one small brown spot, and traces of hinging, not affecting the text).
La Rondine (disenchantment), a commedia lirica in three acts with libretto by G. Adami after A.M. Willner and H. Reichert, was first performed at the Monte Carlo Opéra on 27 March 1917. It tells the story of Magda, a courtesan, who finds true love with a young man of the country, but decides to leave him. The opera contains references to other works of Puccini and also to Massenet and both Richard and Johann Strauss. It includes several dance pieces, a fox-trop, one-step and a tango as well as the omnipresent waltz. The rather lukewarm reception of the work at its first performance together with Puccini's habitual dissatisfaction with his work led the composer to revise the work twice over, so that there are three versions, all with different endings.
 Also included are album pages with the signatures of two of the leading singers at the first performance - Gilda Dalla Rizza (soprano) and Tito Shipa (tenor), both dated 1917.
[No: 24179]

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