This chapter is the first of three to consider Puccini’s travels, both for work and leisure. It covers his travels in western Europe, particularly in France and Great Britain, assessing the importance of Paris and London as key centres for the performance of Puccini’s works. Both cities had had long and vibrant traditions of importing musical works from other European countries; Paris also had a flourishing operatic culture of its own. Puccini visited both cities regularly from the mid-1890s, often to supervise the production of his works. London became particularly important for Puccini when Manon Lescaut was launched at Covent Garden in 1894; a few years later he would visit Manchester for the British premiere of La bohème. Visiting Paris for business allowed Puccini the opportunity to hear new works by other leading European composers of the day, including Debussy and Stravinsky. It was also a place of refuge for him at a time of personal crisis. The chapter records Puccini’s thoughts about these and other European cities, not all of which were flattering. It concludes with a discussion of his death in Brussels in 1924.

This chapter is about Puccini’s operas and gender politics. It explains that Puccini’s operas have been read as particularly damaged and damaging in their representation of women, but argues that a nuanced study of gender in these works needs to look beyond a simple ‘body count’. The author examines how male and female deaths are differentiated musically, arguing that the former are contained and lacking in self-expression, whereas the latter tend to be extravagant and extended. The chapter discusses how gender has been considered in the Puccini literature, paying particular attention to Mosco Carner’s Freudian psychoanalytic reading of the works. It also examines Puccini’s own attitudes towards gender, so far as they are known. The chapter closes with a discussion of queer interpretations of Puccini’s oeuvre, a growing criticism of Puccini’s gender politics by feminist musicologists, and the recent casting of transgender and non-binary performers in Puccini’s works.