L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2018 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE Opera legend Giacomo Puccini: Sleek cars fit him like a glove MARIELLA RADAELLI G iacomo Puccini, the drop-dead hand- some composer of La Bohème, Turan- dot, Madama But- terfly and other opera master- works, was known as a flagrant womanizer. But a little-known fact is that he also had a burning, uncontrollable desire for cars. H is pas s ion for fas t cars would become increasingly evi- dent over the years, according to Ettore Radice, a historian who researched Puccini's car mania. The genius composer (1858- 1924) was moved by the sound of a powerful engine, the unity and uniqueness of an automo- bile's engineering and coach- work, the sheer beauty of the thing. Puccini bought his first car, a De Dion Bouton 5 CV, at the 1901 Milan World's Fair and it cost him a fortune: 3,800 liras. It was small, light and the top- selling car model in France in 1901. Six years later, the manu- facturer Count De Dion consid- ered the model ideal for the gru- eling conditions of the 1907 Peking to Paris raid. Puccini really got automo- biles. He recognized a well- designed machine the instant he touched it and had a fleet of more than 20 gasoline-powered vehicles. In 1902, L'Auto, the in-house magazine of the Italian Automo- bile Club, dedicated the cover of its February issue to the Maestro, shown all excited behind the wheel of his automobile, as part of a special feature entitled Motoring and Art. But what was the genesis of his auto addiction? While it is widely known that the Maestro chose to live in the lakeside vil- lage of Torre del Lago in Tus- cany, it is not fully known that he stayed in Monza between 1886 and 1887, in a downtown apartment at 18, Corso Milano above the railway station. His only son Antonio was born in the lovely medieval town, 10 miles north of Milan. There, in Monza, Puccini com- posed his second opera, Edgar. In Monza, he found inspira- tion to feed his passion as the town was – and still is – a mag- net for the mechanically inclined thanks to the Italian Grand Prix. In 1905 he bought a Sizaire et Nadin finished in white. Nothing gave him more satisfaction than having a full day to take a speedy drive with the gorgeous car into green Brianza, where he would leave his automobile for long walks in Monza's royal park, a saunter in the Lombardy sunshine. Years later, he expressed his wish to return to Monza to attend the historic track. But his poor health while working on his last masterpiece, prevented him from returning. His second car was a beauti- ful Clement Bayard finished in green. On February 25, 1903, while driving the car, he miracu- lously escaped death in a road crash. He felt his car suddenly skid- ding out of control on a road five miles from Lucca, in Vignola. Luckily, he received only a seri- ous leg injury that immobilized him for 10 months. In 1906, he obtained a Permis de Libre Circulation Interna- tionale, an international driving license issued by the Touring Club Italiano headquartered in Milan, via Montenapoleone. A photo dated 1911 depicts the Maestro at Torre del Lago behind the wheel of a Fiat Tipo 1 in the company of poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, a notori- ous technophile. That image sums up the Futurist era pro- claimed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, author of the Mani- festo of Futurism (1909), an artistic and social movement that aimed to capture the dynamism, speed and energy of the modern world. As a driving enthusiast, Puc- cini enjoyed hitting the gas and was surprised at the cost of fines when he was clocked speeding many times driving the Aurelia, taking the seaside route from his charming retreat at Torre del Lago to Viareggio. The police court of Livorno still keeps records of his driving violations. In 1909 he couldn't help but buy a vehicle produced by Isotta Franchini, a Milanese manufac- turer of luxury cars. Puccini loved classy family cars for holi- day travel, but they were unsuit- able to use when he went hunt- ing. So he commissioned Vincenzo Lancia to create the first Italian SUV, a furious sports car also capable of moving off- road. In the summer of 1922, he started a 2,000-mile round trip throughout Europe in his Lancia Trikappa torpedo, which could reach speeds up to 130 km an hour.  In 1924 he had his favorite toy, a Lancia Lambda, delivered right to his door. The cabriolet was the first to use a load bearing body and an independent front suspension. "My Lambda is per- fect. It's the best car for me," he wrote on May 18. "It serves my needs. Its efficiency makes me spend less money on gas." Pucci- ni was a real expert: the Lancia Lambda proved a commercial success. A few months before his death, he was working on his greatest masterpiece, but still enamored with his toy. "Turan- dot is almost finished. Only the duet from the third act is miss- ing. Now I am waiting for poets to send me the verses … Luckily I have my Lambda," he noted.   He made a final trip in the car, a short one to Pisa's train station, on November 4, 1924. He was headed to Brussels, an unexpected one-way trip because there he died, with the last act of Turandot incomplete, hemor- rhaging in the aftermath of dras- tic and experimental throat surgery. Puccini on his first car, a De Dion Bouton, photographed in the yard of the Office Ricordi, in Porta Vittoria. Archivio Storico Ricordi © Ricordi & C. S.r.l. Milano www.archivioricordi.com Outside Puccini's villa, in Torre del Lago. On the car on the left, Puccini and his wife Elvira; on that on the right, their son Antonio Archivio Storico Ricordi © Ricordi & C. S.r.l. Milano www.archivioricordi.com

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