Giuseppe Adami

Librettist. Born 1878-11-04 in Verona. Died 1946-10-12 in Milan.

Wrote libretto for:

• Giacomo Puccini: La rondine
• Giacomo Puccini: Il Tabarro
• Giacomo Puccini: Turandot

Italian playwright, librettist and journalist. After graduating in law at the University of Padua he devoted himself to literature, first as theatre critic of the Arena (Verona), then as playwright. His first stage work was the one-act comedy I fioi di Goldoni in Venetian dialect; thereafter he proved remarkably successful in a comic-sentimental vein with such plays as Una capanna e il tuo cuore (1913), Capelli bianchi (1915), Felicita Colombo (1935) and its sequel Nonna Felicita (1936).

In 1911 he made the acquaintance of Giulio Ricordi, head of the publishing firm, of whom he left a valuable memoir in his Giulio Ricordi e i suoi musicisti (Milan, 1933, 2/1945 as Giulio Ricordi, amico dei musicisti). It was Ricordi who first put him in touch with Puccini, who briefly considered setting his Spanish-derived libretto Anima allegra written with Luigi Motta; it was eventually set by Franco Vittadini, for whom Adami wrote a number of ballet scenarios.

His first collaboration with Puccini was on La rondine (1917), which he adapted as a full-length verse libretto from a German operetta text by Willner and Reichert. There followed Il tabarro (1918) and Turandot (1926), the last being written in partnership with Renato Simoni.

To Adami we owe the first collection of Puccini's letters to be published, Giacomo Puccini: epistolario (Milan, 1928; Eng. trans., 1931, 2/1974), as well as one of the earliest biographies of the composer (Milan, 1935), based on personal recollections. From 1931 to 1934 he was music critic for La sera (Milan) and of the review La comedia. To the end of his life he maintained a connection with the house of Ricordi, for whom he acted as publicist.

Source: www.grovemusic.com