38. Melanconia!...

Prior to the unearthing of the work's manuscript score in the archives of the Villa Puccini in Torre del Lago (I-TLp) in 2021, the only concrete trace of this song, to a text by Antonio Ghislanzoni, was found in Karl Gustav Fellerer’s 1937 monograph of Puccini, in which Fellerer quotes the first five bars (incorrectly transcribing “capuacia” instead of “casuccia” in the second line). Fellerer, however, does not mention where he found the manuscript. Nevertheless, it is very likely that he must have seen it.
All subsequent writings pertaining to this song are exclusively based on Fellerer. Some commentators have failed to mention that the title “Melanconia” and the beginning of the text, “Allor ch’io sarò morto” belong to the same piece and are not two different compositions. The various indications of the instrumentation are not verifiable, and Fellerer’s incipit only contains a piano accompaniment.
Antonio Ghislanzoni (1824–1893), the author of the text, was one of the many colourful characters of the Milanese bohemian artists in the second half of the 19th century, opera singer, double bass player, impresario, journalist and prolific writer, and finally a landlord in the Bergamask Alps, not far from Milan. Today he is best known as the librettist of Verdi’s Aida. Ghislanzoni’s tavern was a favourite destination for devotees of Milan’s musical life. Puccini’s teacher at the Milan Conservatory, Amilcare Ponchielli, had a vacation home near Ghislanzoni’s Alpine retreat, where Puccini occasionally stayed.
Apart from Melanconia, Puccini set three other Ghislanzoni poems to music (39, 40, 41), all probably composed in 1883. The beginning of the song as quoted by Fellerer corresponds to the beginning of the love duet in Le Villi (60, No. 4 in Ricordi’s current edition).