Puccini's Women: Structuring the Role of the Feminine in Puccini's Operas

This book explores the postmodernist aspects of Puccini?s operas and focuses on his female protagonists?Mimì, Musetta, Tosca, Butterfly, Turandot and Liù. Combining a Schenkerian analysis with dualism, I present their complementary dialogue in my analysis. Mimì focuses on the subdominant to present her futile attempts to escape from death. The subdominant in Musetta displays her attractiveness. Tosca concentrates on the submediant that presents the boundary of her world. Floria Tosca can do no harm to anyone. Yet, the diva will act out through the device of deceptive motion killing Scarpia. Butterfly is both an insider and outsider in her life. The Japanese Ying and Yang system portrays that she can never abandon her inherent Japanese identity. Turandot explores Western tonality as it is interwoven with the Chinese pentatonic system and demonstrates how Turnadot is possessed by Lo-u-Ling. Liù?s sacrifice is prefigured through pseudo-pentatonic writing. The book concludes with an examination of Puccini's overall harmonic evolution, showing how weakened hierarchic relationships in the music of these six female characters allows exotic borrowings to be subsumed in a tonal framework.

Ph. D in Music Theory from Florida State University. She has taught Piano at Columbia Univ., tutored music theory at City College, CUNY and taught Music Theory at FSU. Dr. Cheng has presented her research at several conferences including MTSE and WCCMTA. Matthew Shaftel, Ph. D from Yale, is on the faculty of Music at Florida State University.