A Life of Puccini

Tony Palmer's feature, scripted by Charles Wood, dramatises the story which hit the Italian headlines in 1908, when Puccini was fifty. Robert Stephens plays Puccini, Virginia McKenna his wife, Elvira, and Judith Howarth the servant girl who, wrongly accused by Elvira of having an affair with her husband, killed herself. The scandal devastated Puccini's career and shattered his private life. Ten years later he wrote Turandot. Music and documentary film are skillfully combined with the drama to draw connections between this sublime masterpiece and Puccini's experiences.