The Puccini Problem a Century On

Giacomo Puccini became the world’s most famous opera composer in the 1890s, while still a young man in his thirties. His third opera Manon Lescaut (1893) was a huge hit, swiftly making its way around the theatres of Italy and being taken up by opera houses all over Europe and as far afield as North and South America. Three years later, he would follow up on that success with La bohème, that evergreen evocation of what it means to be young and in love, which would go on to become one of the best-loved, most-performed operas ...