The emancipation of feminine roles in Puccini’s creation

Abstract

The heroines represented in the operas of Giacomo Puccini often show diverse typologies of women, built during the 19^th and the 20^th centuries. The researches regarding the Puccini’s operas generally focus on a single category of feminine characters, the so-called ‘heroines of Puccini’. Starting from this finding, we wish to provide a different approach – a more original one, to include a comparative analysis of the heroine of Puccini typologies. The method proposed in this article is based on the analysis of the Puccini feminine characters in three distinct categories (the sentimental heroine, the fatal heroine, and the modern heroine) in a dynamic way. Some feminine characters are noted as evolving even within the same opera, reaching emancipation or a transformation until the end of the opera; consequently, they can be placed into two or three categories that define them.