The reason? The main dramatic action of the work, wherein Roberto falls for a Siren and breaks his vow of love to Anna, leading to her death, is given an orchestral treatment. It is technically an opera-ballet, but at just over an hour in length it feels incomplete. We start with Puccini’s first opera, which for all its good intentions is far from satisfactory. Still, it is an interesting exercise in re-evaluating many of the operatic masterpieces we might often take for granted and looking at them in the context of their maker.
There really isn’t a “bad” Puccini opera. With the exception of perhaps two operas on this list, Puccini turned out one masterpiece after another, so the task of sifting through and providing an analytical reasoning for ranking these was no easy task. Rankings are tricky propositions and undeniably will find their detractors, especially with such a popular figure as Puccini. It is this style that permeates his every work, apparent early on in his oeuvre. All of this, of course, soaked in the waters of explosive passion and emotion, often to overwhelming effect.
He traveled through Ancient China, the Golden West, Japan, delved into a spin-off on “Dante’s Inferno,” and even engaged with bohemian Paris, among others. Puccini’s works strive for the same exoticism that we find in composers that preceded him and like Verdi’s forays into “Ancient Egypt” or Rossini’s into Algiers or the world of fairy tales, Puccini explored differing mythical worlds in his harmonic and dramatic adventures. In fact, much like Verdi before him, he was far greater because he defies categorization. Giacomo Puccini lived during the age of Verismo, but he couldn’t easily be pinned down to said opera genre.
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