Puccini's Real Artistic Features

As representatives of Italian verismo operas, Puccini’s operas,especially his medium-term works like Boheme, Tosca, and MadameButterfly, were created under the influence of Italian verismo literarymovement and early verismo operas. On the other hand however, as oneexpression of “Anti-Wagner” and thanks to the tradition of realism inEuropean operas, his operas reveal the multi-cultural and historicalcontext. Puccini’s operas show the dramatic mode of “little people, bigworld”. Yet, compared with early Italian verismo operas, they arecharacteristic of a variety of social life and in-depth and strengthenedrealistic criticism, which makes Puccini’s operas better than early verismooperas, and even better than Italian verismo literature. In his dramaticmode of “little people, big world”, Puccini favored themes of realism,thus making himself closer to the critical literary tradition of realism. As aresult, his operas are ideologically higher than early verimo operas.Puccini abandoned the “objective attitude” and “others’ language” inverismo literature, and exceeded the “naturalism” expression in earlyverismo operas. With “symbolism” and “analog”, he pursued better andmore lyrical music. Therefore he depicted the “verismo/real” charactersand images, as well as the “verismo/real” psychological description andexpression of feelings. His “verismo” is beyond the “realistic verismo”; itis an “artistic verismo”.