Julian Budden, one of the world's foremost scholars of Italian opera and author of a monumental three-volume study of Verdi's works, now offers music lovers a major new biography of one of the giants of Italian opera, Giacomo Puccini.

Blending astute musical analysis with a colorful account of Puccini's life, here is an illuminating look at some of the most popular operas in the repertoire, including Manon Lescaut, La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot. Budden provides an illuminating look at the process of putting an opera together, the cut-and-slash of nineteenth-century Italian opera--the struggle to find the right performers for the debut of La Boheme, Puccini's anxiety about completing Turandot (he in fact died of cancer before he did so), his animosity toward his rival Leoncavallo (whom he called Leonasino or "lion-ass"). Budden provides an informative analysis of the operas themselves, examining the music act by act. He highlights, among other things, the influence of Wagner on Puccini--alone among his Italian contemporaries, Puccini followed Wagner's example in bringing the motif into the forefront of his narrative, sometimes voicing the singer's unexpressed thoughts, sometimes sending out a signal to the audience of which the character is unaware. And Budden also paints an intriguing portrait of Puccini the man--talented but modest, a man who had friends from every walk of life: shopkeepers, priests, wealthy landowners, fellow artists. Affable, well mannered, gifted with a broad sense of fun, he rarely failed to charm all who met him.

A new volume in the esteemed Master Musicians series, Puccini offers a masterful portrait of this beloved Italian composer.

"At the least, Budden's book will stand as the bellwether of studies of Puccini's music, the starting point for further scholarly work and for informed amateurs alike. At the most, he has given us the best survey we have of Italian opera around 1900.... He has made a minor art form of operatic description in prose, expanding the old format of plot-summary-plus-favoritie-themes to include music analysis, critical response, and secure judgments as to the echoes of other composers heard at any moment. He joins all this is a prose that will engage even those who cannot follow all the musical particulars. There is more: Budden contrives in the introductory sections of his chapters to give us a canny glimpse of Puccini's life at the time of each opera. And--this is one of the most impressive features of his study--he provides in each chapter vignettes that add up to a historical sketch of the musical culture Puccini lived and worked in."--Gary Tomlinson, The New York Times Book Review

"If you want in-depth insight into Puccini's operas, replete with many stanzas of music, Budden's bio and discussion should be on your shelf."--The San Diego Union Tribune

"An enormously impressive achievement. Certainly the best book on Puccini in English. As we would expect from the author of The Operas of Verdi, Budden's discussion of Puccini's alarmingly popular music is both sensitive and challenging in its insights."--Roger Parker, Professor of Music and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge University

"Essential reading, Budden's biography allies in-depth scholarship with narrative pace to offer us a masterly and intensely human portrait of the man and composer. Finely researched, surely the most thoughtful biography to date of Italy's last great opera composer."--Vivien A. Hewitt, Director, Festival Puccini of Torre del Lago

"Bravo Budden!!!!!! His books on Verdi have been an invaluable aid to my study and role preparation over the years, and now the Puccini volume joins them in my library. Budden manages to synthesize the historical, academic, artistic, and human aspects of Puccini's operas in a way that is totally accessible, and most useful to any serious artist or music lover."--Elizabeth Blancke-Biggs, Soprano

Julian Budden, formerly the Chief Producer for Opera at BBC Radio, currently serves as the President of the Centro Studi Giacomo Puccini, Lucca, Italy. He is the author of the Master Musicians biography of Verdi as well as the three-volume The Operas of Verdi.