Puccini Festival

Month : July/August
Place : Italy
Famous For : Opera Festival
Attractions : Open Air Theatre.

Puccini Festival is celebrated to present the operas of the famous Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. Popularly called the summer opera festival, it's held every year in July and August. The epicenter of these celebrations are concentrated at Torre del Lago, a town located between Lago di Massaciuccoli and the Tyrrhenian Sea, which is situated at a distance of 18kilometres from Pisa and Lucca - Puccini's birthplace in Italy.

Major Attractions

For the grand celebrations of this festival, an outdoor theatre has been built on this spot, with a view over the Massaciuccoli Lake. Since 1930, this permanent theatre has portrayed Puccini"s best loved works, including a selection from Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Turandot and La Boheme. In presenting four or five performances of up to four operatic productions each season, the Festival attracts about forty thousand spectators to its open-air theatre, the Teatro dei Quattromila. This theatre is located very close to the house which the composer had built in 1900 and in which he lived and worked on his major operas - "Villa Puccini". Puccini is buried in a small chapel inside the Villa, along with other members of his family, in a room transformed into a mausoleum after his death. Besides this, other events relating to Puccini and his poetic stories are held around the lake to coincide with the festival, which has also become a platform of Puccini"s works.