'Without fever there is no creation'

Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines

- Henrietta Bredin

GIACOMO PUCCINI was an ad- man’s dream—Mad Men’s Peggy Olson and Don Draper would have recruited him for a photographic campaign on the spot. He possessed saturnine good looks, a twirly moustache, a casually graceful way with a cigarette, flamboyant dress sense (he had a fine hat collection) and was a keen game shot, as well as an early adopter of the motorized vehicle. The cars almost killed him and the cigarettes did: he had a near-fatal car accident in 1903 that left him with a permanent limp and he died in 1924, aged 65, after horribly painful treatment for throat cancer at a Brussels clinic.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of his death and has seen even more performances of his enduringly popular operas than usual. Of the top 10 most performed operas around the world, three are by Puccini: La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. Two of his best-loved tunes, The Humming Chorus from Butterfly and the aria O mio babbino caro (Gianni Schicchi), will feature in the Last Night of the Proms this weekend on September 14.

Music ran in the family—on his father’s side, he came from a dynasty of church musicians in his home town of Lucca. After the early death of his father, Michele, Puccini was expected to follow in his footsteps as an organist, but, despite his mother Albina’s unshakeable belief in his outstanding natural gifts, displayed little talent or interest. His school reports singled him out as being ‘conspicuously lazy’; reluctantly, he became a choirboy in the church choir and, from the age of 14, played the organ for services.