68. Avanti Urania!

Puccini promised this composition to Marchese Carlo Ginori Lisci, when he acquired the 179-ton iron screw steamer, formerly the Queen Mary (built in 1879 in Aberdeen, Scotland), renamed the Urania (see Kaye 1987, p. 61). The agreement apparently originated in 1895. Puccini informed Ginori on 18 December 1895 that the song would be finished “al più presto possibile [as soon as possible]” (see Critica 1976, p. 191). Since 68.A.1 was dated in September 1896 and 68.B.1 as late as 4 October 1896, Puccini obviously kept the Marchese waiting for a long time. This might be explained by Puccini’s intensive preoccupation with the first performance of La Bohème (67) and the following performances of the opera in Rome, Naples, Palermo, and Florence. He only allowed himself little repose at the beginning of June 1896 (see Schickling 1989, pp. 137-39), so the composition of the song was probably begun only shortly before its autograph dating.
Marchese Carlo Ginori Lisci (1851-1905), the husband of the song’s dedicatee, was a wealthy manufacturer of porcelain and ceramics. He also owned large estates on Lake Massaciuccoli, where his villa “La Piaggetta” was (and still is) situated opposite Puccini’s residence in Torre del Lago. In the autumn of 1895, Puccini rented a house there.Note: *From the summer of 1891 Puccini only had at his disposal a small apartment in Torre del Lago; see Schickling 1989, p. 123. Even earlier, Puccini frequently visited Ginori, who also granted him the highly desirable right to hunt game and water fowl on his property. The composition of Avanti Urania!, its dedication to Ginori’s second wife, and the simultaneous dedication of La Bohème to Ginori himself, all constitute substantial symbols of Puccini’s gratitude to the Marchese and his family, with whom Puccini retained strong ties until his death (see also Puccini’s letters to Ginori’s daughter, Maria Bianca Ginori Lisci, published in Critica 1976, pp. 190–225).
The poet Renato Fucini (1843-1921) was also a close friend of the Ginoris. His stories and poems, partly in Tuscan dialect, made him nationally famous. Three years after the composition of Avanti Urania!, he also wrote the text for Puccini’s song E l’uccellino (71). If the information is true that Fucini’s text is dated 25 January 1892 in a manuscript of the poem copied by his wife,Note: *As reported in Magri 1999, according to R. Disarò, “Inediti e autografi fuciniani”, Le Apuane, May 1984. this would mean it was only much later that Puccini provided the music for this dedicatory poem by his friend Fucini.
It has often been said that Avanti Urania! contains traces of the Preludio sinfonico in A major (32), as well as anticipations of passages in Tosca (69) and particularly in Madama Butterfly (74). Those parallels are rather vague, being more like stylistic similarities than deliberate self-borrowings.