The 150th anniversary of the birth of the great tuscan composer Giacono Puccini was celebrated at the Venice Film Festival, where on 30 August the world première was presented of the film Puccini e la fanciulla (”Puccini and the Young Girl”), directed by Paolo Benvenuti.
The file recounts the origins of the opera “La fanciulla del West”: the love affair between Puccini and Giulia Manfredi, who fell in love at the “Chalet da Emilio”, a rustic bar suspended on wooden piles opposite the home of the musician at Torre del Lago.
The great musician often visited the bar, where Giulia served wine and smiles: he drank, played, smoked and thus went back refreshed to composing music.
Giulia was the cousin of Doria Manfredi, the young serving maid in Puccini’s house, who was unjustly accused by Elvira, his jealous wife, of being her husband’s lover. Dora committed suicide due to this, but once dead it was discovered that she was a virgin. Her silence, according to the theory of the director, served to protect the secret her master had entrusted her with: the relationship between her master and her cousin, a strong volatile woman, who probably inspired the character Minnie, “la fanciulla del West”.
For the film they rebuilt and restored some of the typical buildings of the time to just as they were at the beginning of the 1900s, and which now belong to the nation: the Chalet di Emilio, the Casetta di Doria and the Barchetto, a little boat that took Puccini from Villa Ginori to his house at Torre del Lago after his car accident in 1903.
The little village of Torre del Lago is part of the National Park of Migliarino S. Rossore Massaciucolli. Thanks to the setting up of the Park, these places have recovered the sounds and atmosphere that enchanted the great composer. And time seems to have stood still since then: Villa Orlando a Torre, Villa Ginori a Massarosa, the guards’ house on the shore at Vecchiano, all have remained mysteriously intact despite the fact that they lie close to the famous beaches of Versilia, the wonderful city of Lucca and the most famous tower in the world, at Pisa. The best way of enjoying these places full of charm, history and culture is to stay in an elegant and prestigious traditional home at Lucca, Camaiore or Villas in Forte dei Marmi
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