Student's full name- Chandrani Sarkar.
"Literature and other works ": Puccini, Madama Butterfly.
Madama Butterfly: the social mirror.
Opera, a highbrow salon experiment of elaborate music and drama came into its form to entertain the majestic family. Through opera, they used exhibit their assets under the veil of theatrical musical drama. It was a new and refined form of drama which gave the performers enough space to exhibit their talent of both acting and singing. Orchestra came into its existence through this new theatrical form. In the year of 1637, Venice, the first public Opera show was held, and Opera was no more just meant to entertain the people of royal domain; rather anyone could attend here with a right priced ticket. Opera can be directly related to the modern day movie halls, where cheapest ticket holders are allotted to sit in the front seat, whereas the highest paid ticket holder could take the prestigious balcony seats. Giacoma Puccini, "The greatest composer of Italian Opera after Verdi ", had developed his work in the realistic verismo style. This style of composition is distinguished by depiction of everyday life of lower class and rejecting the historical or mythical subject. His works include Le Villi, Edgar, Manon Lescaut, La boheme, Tosca, and his most famous work was Madama Butterfly (which though had flopped disastrously at the beginning, but later went on to become his most important work).
Puccini attracted the attention of an influential publisher, Gulio Ricordy, through his first composition Le Villi. Mr. Ricordy commissioned an opera from Puccini and his Librettists, Fontana for his second piece of work Edgar which had failed to achieve a grand success, as the Libretto did not mesh well with the dramatic music. And this failure in libretto made him unsure about his own abilities towards the choice of subject matter. The relationship of Giacoma Puccini with his librettist Fontana had become sour due to his over conscious attitude towards libretto.
