The Power of lyricism in Puccini’s drama

Abstract

Puccini’s musical language is deeply imbued with beauty and truth. His poetic realism gains enormously in color and setting because Puccini understands opera as theater. His lyricism serves to express inner feelings, transforming characters’ intimate feelings into moments of high dramatic tension. His melodies are full of cantabile, intensely expressing extraordinarily thrilling moods, deep inner feelings, bringing to the spectators’ normal characters with whom they resonate and with whom they experience musical moments that often reach catharsis. The orchestra participates intensely in the melodic discourse through strong contrasts of dynamics and color, maintains balance in harmony, emphasizes the characters’ emotional states through the use of instruments capable of suggesting subtle emotions, remaining faithful to the Italian traditions of belcanto and verismo, but at the same time integrating modernist elements.