Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 74-06(E), Section: A
Adviser: J. Peter Burkholder
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, 2012
This dissertation investigates the crucial role that nostalgia plays in the dramaturgy, performance, and reception of select operas by Giacomo Puccini. On the surface, the significance that the concept of nostalgia plays in Puccini's operas seems to be self-explanatory. However, nostalgia, since its invention in the late seventeenth century, has acquired a wide range of meanings and connotations that compels careful investigation, ranging from a deadly form of homesickness to a non-fatal, ordinary human emotion, and from an evocative poetic trope that underscored Romantic nationalism to a negatively charged epithet thrown at dangerously regressive political ideologies
Drawing on recent scholarship in cultural history and literary studies on the idea of nostalgia, this dissertation proposes two interrelated approaches in considering Puccini's fictional representations of nostalgic moments in his operas. The first approach investigates nostalgia as a psychological phenomenon and interprets Puccini's evocation of nostalgia in light of historic medical and lexicographical documents. The second approach posits nostalgia as a rhetorical device and examines the ways Puccini structures his narratives and deploys recurring musical materials in order to achieve desired emotional effects on the audience
Examination of Puccini's representative works from different points in his career, including Le Villi, Manon Lescaut, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, La fanciulla del West, La rondine, Il tabarro, and Turandot, demonstrates Puccini's continued and varied engagement with the theme of nostalgia. Furthermore, a close reading of Japanese soprano Miura Tamaki's recollection of Puccini and the contemporary reactions to her final performance of Madama Butterfly suggests the central role that nostalgia plays in the performance and reception of one of Puccini's most widely recognized operas. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to uncover the source of strong emotional reactions to Puccini's opera that many operagoers experience
