Opera Scotland

Giuseppe Giacosa Suggest updates

Born Colloretto Parella, 21 October 1847.

Died Colloretto Parella, 2 September 1906.

Italian dramatist and librettist.

Giuseppe Giacosa qualified as a lawyer and worked in legal practice until his developing success as a playwright allowed him to become a full-time writer. He had particular success with a series of bourgeois comedies, though he was also able to write serious drama - perhaps the Italian equivalent of Pinero, if not quite of Shaw or Ibsen. At the Verdi Conservatory he taught as professor of drama.

Prominent plays include Una partita a scacchi (1871), La zampa del gatto (1883), L'onorerole Ercole Malladri (1884),  Tristi amori (1887),  Signora di Challant (1891), Diritti dell' anima (1894), Come le foglie (1900), and Il più forte (1904).

He first collaborated with Puccini on knocking the unsatisfactory libretto of Manon Lescaut into shape. From then until his death Giacosa's collaboration with Luigi Illica produced all of Puccini's next three libretti - La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. Illica provided the sound dramatic structure, while Giacosa had a facility for rendering the lines into singable verse.