"Saint Lucy is celebrated in Italy on the 13th December.

The 7th December is, on the other hand, Saint Ambrose’s day and Sant’Ambrogio is the patron saint of Milan: on his day, by tradition dating back to 1940, La Scala opens its annual opera season, that for the previous 140 years had been inaugurated on the 26th December.

The Italian adaptation of classical culture ended up by creating a new national mythology for the new-born nation, which, exactly as it was for the Greek mythology, to this day studs the calendar and celebrates its annual liturgies and rites, mixing up these new pagan deities of a vocal nature with Christian saints and martyrs.

The temple of Demeter and the cult of her daughter Persephone have given place to the temples of Opera where Mimì – whose real name we know to be Lucia*, meaning light – meets Rodolfo every dark, freezing Christmas night to ask him to light her candle, symbolizing the sun triumphantly reborn at the winter solstice; thus her putative “mother”, Violetta, is immolated as a sacrificial victim at Carnival only to be reborn, an immortal phoenix, with the arrival of Easter; neither can l’april  flower again if Calaf does not melt the ice and the enigmas of Turandot, and fails to chant the spell of his own name upon her lips at the birth of every new day."

(Sara Gamarro, Cantare Italiano - The Language of Opera)

PS: Did you know that Puccini was himself born on a winter solstice?

"Sventata, sventata!
La chiave della stanza, dove l'ho lasciata?"

Other than the word "sventata" recalling the "candle in the wind" metaphor that will accompany the protagonist till the last moments of her precarious life, in Mimì's words "la chiave della stanza" there is also a hidden pun regarding the poetry technique used by the librettist Illica.

In Italian poetry, "Chiave" is what are called, ever since Petrarca, the two central verses of a chorus or "stanza", that are linked by a rhyming couplet (rima baciata, in Italian: literally "kissing rhyme"). 

A Christmas Eve flirt where Rodolfo, the trovatore, "trovò la Poesia".

Who follows my work or has read #CantareItaliano knows the importance I give to given #names in #Opera: they hold the #secret of a character, his #fate. Well, Mimì opens and closes her stage life asking herself, with her very last breaths, why they call her like that, for she knows not: "Il perché... non so..."

"Opera is part of my being Italian [...] We have seen all our aunts and their daughters weeping over their hand-made lace while they sang "Mi chiamano Mimì" . These things belong to us so much that they become estranged, as is the subconscious.

-Federico Fellini-

With Puccini, Opera trades the theatrical stage for the movie theater. Puccini's are musical movies, not operas, in all possible aspects. His use of the #dolly in the #concertati, his sudden #zooming on faces, connecting apparently non connected lines and characters, in the biggest, loudest, most crowded places and scenes, knows NO comparison. What he can render through his music are typical #camera effects. And you don't act in front of the camera like on stage, so the acting and the musical portraying of the characters has to update too.

Ho parlato spesso, ma forse non abbastanza, di come il Lucchese registri pienamente, nelle sue opere, l'esordio della #Moda come noi la conosciamo oggi; altro tema ricorrente è la descrizione del #ciclo vitale nel rincorrersi delle #stagioni; poi c'è la #guerra e l'#amore non è, in fondo, che un filo conduttore che cuce assieme fatti più grandi.

It took me ten years of work to find out the very existence of this golden, magic #circle, through the understanding of its functionement, by #coaching and infusing the #shape and #sound of #italianvowels in dozens of non #Italian#singers, in endless repetitions of the #words and lines of dozens of #Opera #libretti and #Italiansongs #lyrics.

My upcoming Christmas newsletter will contain a very special, quite invaluabe gift for all my subscribers and potentially for their Opera fellows, too.
If you haven't yet, this is really a good time to join the Cantare Italiano community. Just hit the button below.

Let Lucia's candle be lit once again.

Happy Santa Lucia and a very Merry Christmas, everyone!!!