Giuseppe Giacosa

Giuseppe Giacosa , 1847-1906, Italian dramatic poet. After Una partita a scacchi [a game of chess] (1873) won him his first success, he devoted himself to playwriting. His plays, which deal largely with life in Piedmont and reflect the bourgeois attitudes of his day, are notable for their simplicity and perceptiveness. Among them are Tristi amori (1888, tr. Unhappy Love in Poet Lore, Vol. XXVII, 1916); La Dame de Challant, written in French for Sarah Bernhardt and produced by her in New York in 1891; Come le foglie (1900, tr. As the Leaves Fall, 1911); and Il più forte (1904, tr. The Stronger, 1913). With Luigi Illica, Giacosa also wrote the librettos of Puccini's operas La Bohème (1896, tr. 1898), Tosca (1899, tr. 1900), and Madame Butterfly (1904, tr. 1905).

Giacosa, Giuseppe (1847–1906), Italian playwright, after Verga the most important dramatist of the Italian school of verismo. Although an accomplished craftsman and an alert observer of contemporary life, his range was narrow, his psychological insight limited, and his ideas essentially derivative; but, seeking to assert the value of middle-class morality, he unconsciously painted an accurate and pathetic portrait of the decadence of the Italian bourgeoisie. A kindly and humane man, Giacosa was most at home in such charming and successful comedies as Una partita a scacchi (A Game of Chess, 1871), La zampa del gatto (The Cat's Paw, 1883), and L'onorevole Ercole Malladri (1884). With the historical play Signora di Challant (1891) he provided an excellent vehicle for both Bernhardt and Duse.