The dark side of the moon The composer
Giacomo Puccini
150 years ago, the famous Italian composer Giacomo Puccini was born in the Tuscan town of Lucca. His music - notably some of the immortal arias of his operas "La Bohème", "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly" - is still among the most popular tunes ever written. Already in his lifetime Puccini was a very famous man, admired and adored for his genius by many as well as despised by others for the alleged sentimentality and even banality of his music. But Puccini was not only regarded as one of the greatest composers of his time, he was also seen as an especially attractive man, and his womanizing activities were widely considered as the typical behaviour of the quintessential Italian man! But beneath the shimmering surface Giacomo Puccini was a distressed, driven soul: full of self-doubt and self-hatred, full of self-destructive energy. His life was a continuous struggle to raise his low self-esteem, and this precipitated not only in Puccini`s public appearance as a playboy - he was always dressed in the latest fashion, and loved and bought fast cars and even faster racing boats - but as well in an almost irrepressible appetite in sexual affaires.
150 years ago, the famous Italian composer Giacomo Puccini was born in the Tuscan town of Lucca. His music - notably some of the immortal arias of his operas "La Bohème", "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly" - is still among the most popular tunes ever written. Already in his lifetime Puccini was a very famous man, admired and adored for his genius by many as well as despised by others for the alleged sentimentality and even banality of his music. But Puccini was not only regarded as one of the greatest composers of his time, he was also seen as an especially attractive man, and his womanizing activities were widely considered as the typical behaviour of the quintessential Italian man! But beneath the shimmering surface Giacomo Puccini was a distressed, driven soul: full of self-doubt and self-hatred, full of self-destructive energy. His life was a continuous struggle to raise his low self-esteem, and this precipitated not only in Puccini`s public appearance as a playboy - he was always dressed in the latest fashion, and loved and bought fast cars and even faster racing boats - but as well in an almost irrepressible appetite in sexual affaires.