O Mio Puccini Caro

Cara and Emilio, featuring guest tenor Andrea Pinna, perform their final recital to honour Giacomo Puccini in the year of the 100th anniversary of his death at downtown's beautiful CKUA Radio performance space in the 1903 Alberta Hotel.

Giacomo Puccini was born into a family of court composers and organists in the historic city of Lucca, Italy. Puccini has been much maligned for his flirtation with popular music, but he had an uncanny feel for a good story and talent for enthralling yet economical music. His experiments with tonality and form, while constant, were always subtle, and unlike his contemporary Stravinsky, he did not seem to need to be controversial. His melodies are mostly simple stepwise vocal lines, yet with them he managed to create arias of astonishing beauty. The use of orchestra is economical and to the point – few operas of his have overtures and Puccini often captures the right dramatic moments with just a splash of colorful chords. Though his personal life was plagued with self-doubt and laborious perfectionism, Puccini profoundly influenced the world of opera with a deep understanding of music, drama and humanity.