Puccini’s Lucca: Nightly Concerts, His Birthplace and the Lake Festival

Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca on December 22, 1858, into a family that had been the city’s church musicians for generations. He left to study in Milan and went on to write La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot, but he never really left this corner of Tuscany. He built his life on a lake half an hour from Lucca, hunted in its marshes and wrote many of his operas there. For music lovers, a week in a villa near Lucca is a week inside Puccini’s world. Here is how to experience it.

An aria every evening: the concerts at San Giovanni

The easiest place to start is also one of the most charming. The Puccini e la sua Lucca festival presents a short concert of arias and duets in the church of San Giovanni, near the cathedral, every evening at 7 p.m. from spring to autumn, and several evenings a week through the winter. Singers and programs change nightly, the hour falls just before dinner, and the acoustics of the old church do the rest. No need to plan far ahead: buy tickets on the day, then walk to a trattoria for a plate of tordelli.

Puccini’s birthplace

The house where Puccini was born, in the heart of the old town near Piazza Cittadella, is now the Puccini Museum. Its rooms hold family furniture, letters, scores and costumes, and the Steinway piano on which he composed much of Turandot. Outside in the little square, a bronze Puccini sits in an armchair, cigarette in hand, and summer brings the Cartoline Pucciniane, recitals of arias with piano right beside his statue.

Torre del Lago: his home on the lake

In the 1890s Puccini fell in love with Torre del Lago, a fishing village on the shore of Lake Massaciuccoli between Lucca and the sea. He built a villa there in 1900, now the Villa Museo Puccini, and lived and worked in it until 1921, when he moved to nearby Viareggio. He is buried today in a small chapel inside the house. You can still see his piano, his hunting rifles and the rooms he lived in, with the reeds and the water just outside.

It is an easy outing from any villa in the Lucca hills, about half an hour by car. Go in the late afternoon, walk along the lakefront, and stay for dinner.

The Puccini Festival

Every summer since 1930, Torre del Lago has staged the Puccini Festival, the only major festival devoted entirely to his operas, in a large open-air theater on the shore of the lake. Watching Tosca or Butterfly under the stars, with the lake behind the stage, is an experience our clients talk about for years.

The season runs each summer from mid-July to early September, with favorites like Turandot, Tosca, La Bohème and Madama Butterfly, plus gala evenings. Tickets range widely in price, and the best seats sell out early, so book as soon as you have your dates. Bring a light layer: the breeze off the lake can be cool by the final act.

Into the hills: Celle dei Puccini

For devoted fans, the family’s ancestral home sits in the village of Celle, high in the chestnut woods of the Serchio Valley above Pescaglia. It is a small, personal museum with family memorabilia, and the road up is narrow and winding, so take it slowly. In summer the village hosts open-air concerts. Combine it with a day in the Garfagnana and Serchio Valley.

A Puccini week, the Doorways way

Here is how we would plan it:

• Day 1: Settle into your villa, then drive into Lucca for the 7 p.m. concert at San Giovanni and dinner inside the walls.
• Day 2: Morning at the Puccini Museum, lunch in town, an afternoon by the pool.
• Day 3: Late afternoon at the Villa Museo Puccini in Torre del Lago, then a night at the festival.
• Day 4: Up to Celle dei Puccini and the Serchio Valley, with lunch in a mountain trattoria.
• Day 5: Opera comes to you, with a private concert at the villa after dinner.

Opera at your villa

For a milestone birthday or a family reunion, nothing beats a private performance. At the Coselli Estate near Lucca, the concierge can bring an ensemble of professional musicians to the villa: a piano, cello and flute with a soprano and a baritone. The pianist plays softly through dinner, and afterward the singers perform a concert of about two hours of the great arias, from La Bohème and Madama Butterfly to La Traviata and Le Nozze di Figaro, with your guests seated all around them. Ask us to arrange it for any of our villas near Lucca.

Spring and early autumn offer the nightly concerts without the summer heat, while July and August bring the festival. Our guide to the best time to visit Lucca lays out the calendar.

Where to stay

For a Puccini trip, we like the villas in the hills just outside Lucca, close enough for evening concerts in town and an easy drive to the lake. Browse our villas near Lucca, read where to stay in Lucca, or ask us to plan your opera week, festival tickets included.