La rondine

The setting is belle-époque Paris, where the beautiful and sophisticated Magda de Civry entertains a whirl of poets, aristocrats and social butterflies. Her own heart is free: like the swallow, she longs to fly away to a world of sunlight and true love (her maid Lisette and the poet Prunier have altogether more worldly ambitions). Into this glittering scene steps a young man with an innocent air. Ruggero is eager to see all that Paris has to offer, and Magda is happy to show him—but can their blossoming love ever be more than a bird of passage? The big surprise in Puccini’s La rondine (The Swallow) is that no one dies. Puccini conceived La rondine as a homage to Viennese operetta: an elegant, bittersweet romance treated with realism and wit, as well as tenderness and passion. It wasn’t what anyone expected from the composer of Tosca, and World War I intervened to give La rondine a difficult start (it finally premiered in 1917). But its glowing colours, its waltz tunes and melodies such as Prunier’s song “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta” have given it a special place in the hearts of Puccini admirers, with Magda herself joining Verdi’s Violetta and Strauss’s Marschallin among opera’s most fascinating and believable heroines.