This book traces Puccini's development as an opera composer and thinker. The subject is the composer's ideas as they appear in his operas. The book, written for the opera-goer and the admirer of Puccini's operas in addition to the musicologist, has chapters on all of Puccini's operas and divides them into three general categories: myth and vision; God, religion, and the Roman Catholic Church; and economics, politics, and society. Within these three subdivisions, this study explores the growth of Puccini's thought and dramatic skill. In this book the author analyzes the operas as artistic reflections of Puccini's intellectual and dramatic development. The book includes translations of many of the composer's own verses, the first translations into English for most of these poems.