Giovacchino Forzano

An Italian playwright, librettist and stage director, and the author of two of the three operas of Puccini's Trittico. He studied medicine, sang briefly as a baritone, then took a law degree and edited La Nazione in Florence. He met Puccini in 1914 and wrote Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi for him, having declined Il tabarro because he preferred to devise his own plots. He also wrote for Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Wolf-Ferrari and Giordano. As stage director at La Scala he mounted the premieres of Boito's Nerone and Turandot. He wrote three plays with Mussolini, and never shook off the association.