Puccini without elegance
A musical work guide that provides information, but does not present the operas in essayistic depth or from stage practice.
On page 4 - before the table of contents of this book - a small note catches the eye: The list of roles in the operas, the orchestral and choral cast and a detailed bibliography can be found on the publisher's homepage. And indeed, if you type in the address correctly, you will find what you are looking for. But isn't it a little strange that this information was not included in the book itself, a "musical guide" to Puccini's operas? Furthermore: The volume contains neither an introduction nor an index, but also no pictures and certainly no musical examples. All of the Italian composer's operatic works are dealt with soberly, from Le Villi to Turandot, more succinctly the early ones, in detail the great successful ones. The author Gerd Uecker, himself an experienced opera director, most recently at the Semperoper in Dresden, lays out a wealth of material and knowledge before us, historical, music-historical, biographical - all of it emphatically factual and clearly structured, so that you can find what you are looking for later. However, from a completely unillustrated book I would have wished for an essay-like deepening of the material - or a sensuality and theatricality nourished by stage experience - or a stylistic elegance and passion appropriate to Puccini. At times, the text comes across as a little careless and wooden.
Gerd Uecker: Puccini's operas. A musical work guide, 128 p., € 8.95, C.H.Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69842-2
