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A newly translated LIBRETTO of Puccini's THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST (La Fanciulla del West) with many music examples.

A newly translated LIBRETTO of Puccini's LA RONDINE (The Swallow) with many music examples.

Unfinished at Puccini's death in 1924, Turandot was not only his most ambitious work, but it became the last Italian opera to enter the international repertory. In this colorful study two renowned music scholars demonstrate that this work, despite the modern climate in which it was written, was a fitting finale for the centuries-old Great Tradition of Italian opera. Here they provide concrete instances of how a listener might encounter the dramatic and musical structures of Turandot in light of the Italian melodramma, and firmly establish Puccini's last work within the tradition of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. In a summary of the sounds, sights, and symbolism of Turandot, the authors touch on earlier treatments of the subject, outline the conception, birth, and reception of the work, and analyze its coordinated dramatic and musical design. Showing how the evolution of the libretto documents Puccini's reversion to large musical forms typical of the Great Tradition in the late nineteenth century, they give particular attention to his use of contrasting Romantic, modernist, and two kinds of orientalist coloration in the general musical structure. They suggest that Puccini's inability to complete the opera resulted mainly from inadequate dramatic buildup for Turandot's last-minute change of heart combined with an overly successful treatment of the secondary character.

Prayer Practice runs monthly on the Faith & Values page. If you have a practice you'd like to share, or a favorite prayer, write Prayer Practice/Rebecca Nappi, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615. Or e-mail Rebeccan@spokesman.com. When Barbara Rondine heard the announcement of the Gulf War in 1991, she felt terrible pain inside. She had always admired the Quaker emphasis on pacifism and peace, so she looked in the phone book for a number. She then attended her first \"meeting\" and discovered the simplicity and beauty of the faith as she and several others sat together in silence for an hour.

In many ways, \"La Rondine\" was Puccini daring to write against himself, to discard many of his proven powers -- the big, surefire tunes, slam-bam endings and wrenching emotional conflicts.

By the third act, [William Fred Scott] says, what started as backstage drama becomes indistinguishable from the opera itself. Call it an attempt at \"reality opera\" as theater. What: Giacomo Puccini's bitter- chocolate operetta \"La Rondine,\" a lyrical comedy in three acts. The Viennese-style waltzes alone are worth the price of admission. When, where: 8 tonight, 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. $19- $127. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., 404-817-8700, www.atlantaopera.org. There's a free lecture an hour before curtain time at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, across Peachtree from the Fox. And please note that crowds for this weekend's Music Midtown events might make parking more difficult than usual. Plan to arrive early or take MARTA to the North Avenue station.

If it wasn't written by [Puccini], and a Puccini apparently still at the height of his creative powers at that, no one would bother much with La Rondine. Composed during the early years of the first world war in response to a commission from Vienna for an operetta, it is musically and dramatically thin, despite the revisions that were made after the premiere in 1917. It is only that rarity value, and the performance of Janis Kelly in the main role, that make Opera North's revival of Francesca Zambello's 1994 staging worth catching.

With an infestation of Butterflies and Bohemians at local opera companies in recent seasons, less familiar and lesser Puccini has suddenly become a welcome change. \"Manon Lescaut\" found its way to Opera Pacific last month; \"Il Tabarro\" gets the Long Beach Opera treatment in June. And Saturday night, Los Angeles Opera brought the composer's seldom-encountered \"La Rondine\" to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Rare as \"Rondine\" is, this \"Rondine\" is rarer still. The production by Marta Domingo gives an entirely new twist to the ending of Puccini's Italian \"Rosenkavalier.\" If \"Rondine\" weren't so unfamiliar to most audiences, this is just the kind of thing that could get some operagoers very upset. Changing the decor in an updated production is one thing; changing the actual opera is something else. Inspired by Strauss' \"Rosenkavalier,\" Puccini wanted a Viennese- style bitter-chocolate confection of his own. The libretto, about a Parisian mistress who tries unsuccessfully to recapture her innocent youth in a new relationship, is a poor one. Puccini labored with it through three versions of the opera. He also suffered bad timing. Premiering during World War I, the opera seemed an escapist entertainment just as the world was undergoing a radical shift.

Early this year, after four years away from the stage, Puerto Rican born singer and UNICEF Ambassador, [Ricky Martin], kicked off the U.S. leg of his triumphant world tour ONE NIGHT ONLY, which took him to 18 major U.S. cities. Martin began his worldwide tour in Latin America in November where he visited Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

Both singers are real finds. Armstrong has a luscious spun-honey timbre and enough theatrical presence to triumph over a couple of bad costumes. She sings and acts with imagination, taste, and total emotional honesty. She offered the famous aria not as a showpiece but as an unfolding thought and a welling-up of feeling; she knows that with [Puccini] the little things are even more important than the big climaxes. [Shawn Mathey] is not as fully developed an artist, but conveys sincerity and manages his pretty lyric tenor with style and grace. In a small role, Heidi Stober's soprano made our ears perk up; with almost nothing to sing, James Maddalena made a complex character of [Magda]'s protector - demanding, kindly, dignified, yet capable of being hurt. 1. Soprano Pamela Armstrong and tenor Shawn Mathey in Boston Lyric Opera's production of Puccini's \"La Rondine.\" / PHOTO / RICHARD FELDMAN 2. With little to sing in \"La Rondine,\" James Maddalena (right, with Pamela Armstrong) nonetheless creates a complex figure. / PHOTO / RICHARD FELDMAN