Giacosa, Giuseppe

Giacosa, Giuseppe (jOOzep'pā jäkô'zä) [key], 1847–1906, Italian dramatic poet. After Una partita a scacchi [a game of chess] (1873) won him his first success, he devoted himself to playwriting. His plays, which deal largely with life in Piedmont and reflect the bourgeois attitudes of his day, are notable for their simplicity and perceptiveness. Among them are Tristi amori (1888, tr. Unhappy Love in Poet Lore, Vol. XXVII, 1916); La Dame de Challant, written in French for Sarah Bernhardt and produced by her in New York in 1891; Come le foglie (1900, tr. As the Leaves Fall, 1911); and Il più forte (1904, tr. The Stronger, 1913). With Luigi Illica, Giacosa also wrote the librettos of Puccini's operas La Bohème (1896, tr. 1898), Tosca (1899, tr. 1900), and Madame Butterfly (1904, tr. 1905).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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