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Lecture

Daniel Snowman
A New World of Puccini and His ‘Verismo’ Contemporaries

Wednesday 18.06.2025

How to watch

This lecture starts on 18 June at 5:00pm (UK).

Summary

Giuseppe Verdi’s final opera, Falstaff, premiered at La Scala, Milan, on 9 February 1893, shortly before the composer’s 80th birthday. Just a week earlier, on 2 February, the Teatro Regio in Turin staged Manon Lescaut, the first successful opera by a scarcely known young composer in his early thirties named Giacomo Puccini. In this lecture, Daniel considers whether Puccini could be the successor of old Verdi.

Daniel Snowman

an image of Daniel Snowman

Daniel Snowman is a social and cultural historian. Born in London to a Jewish family in 1938 and educated at Cambridge and Cornell, Daniel became a lecturer at the University of Sussex and went on to work for many years at the BBC as senior producer of radio features and documentaries. A senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (University of London), his many books include a social history of opera and a study of the cultural impact of the ‘Hitler Emigrés’ and, most recently, his memoir “Just Passing Through: Interactions with the World 1938-2021”.