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Composer: Puccini, Giacomo

The Dark Side of the Moon

Television Director: Morell, Andreas

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Playing Time: 00:58:21

Catalogue Number: CM9546

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The Italian composer Giacomo Puccini is reputed to have once described himself as "a passionate hunter of water birds, texts and women." It was an ironic description of the problems which are said to have accompanied him throughout his life. He was indeed a passionate, yet terrible, hunter. With every opera he wrote, he wore out numerous librettists in the search for the perfect text, because unlike Mozart, he couldn't write a single note before the "script" for a new piece of work was just as he wanted it. And for as long as he lived, he was almost manic in his hunt for and collection of beautiful women.

The film by Andreas Morell looks at Giacomo Puccini's life from the point of view of his manic psychological preoccupation with one subject: women. He makes connections between the women in Puccini's life and those in his operas, looking as he goes at what made Puccini tick. Starting with a characteristic situation in Vienna in 1923 – one year before the composer's death – the film offers an insight into Puccini and reflects a repetitive pattern which spanned almost three decades of his life. As he summarised for his own credo: "I cannot compose without love in my life!"