Apart from his sustaining international fame, Giacomo Puccini received contrasting criticism in Italy from the progressive nationalists and Mussolini`s fascism. In the early twentieth-century, Italy had underwent social upheavals and anxiety about the...
Apart from his sustaining international fame, Giacomo Puccini received contrasting criticism in Italy from the progressive nationalists and Mussolini`s fascism. In the early twentieth-century, Italy had underwent social upheavals and anxiety about the national identity before Benito Mussolini`s Fascist party came into power. During this period, Italian criticism of Puccini reflects generational conflicts over nationalism and internationalism, and over conservative and progressive values. Based on such a historical condition, this thesis investigates the way how political ideology such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti`s Futurism and Italian Fascism influences music criticism and an artist`s achievement is used as a means of propaganda. Examples of critical narrative include the Futurist attack on Puccini and opera culture, commencing from ``futurist manifesto`` in 1909, and ideological conflicts surrounding the premiere of Puccini`s Turandot in 1926.