Daniel Snowman
A New World of Puccini and His ‘Verismo’ Contemporaries
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Summary
Giuseppe Verdi’s (1813-1901) final opera, Falstaff, premiered at La Scala, Milan, on 9 February 1893 shortly before the composer’s 80th birthday. Just a week before, on 2 February, the Teatro Regio in Turin staged Manon Lescaut, the first successful opera by a scarcely known young composer in his early 30s named Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). This fascinating lecture examines the changing worlds of these two great artists.
Daniel Snowman
Daniel Snowman is a social and cultural historian. Born in London to a Jewish family in 1938 and educated at Cambridge and Cornell, Daniel became a lecturer at the University of Sussex and went on to work for many years at the BBC as senior producer of radio features and documentaries. A senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (University of London), his many books include a social history of opera and a study of the cultural impact of the ‘Hitler Emigrés’ and, most recently, his memoir “Just Passing Through: Interactions with the World 1938-2021”.