Besides being a Natural Park, (San Rossore) Lake Massaciuccoli, is known to host on its banks, the House, now a museum and tomb of Giacomo Puccini, who found here his “Buen Retiro”.
The lake is home every summer, during July and August, to the Puccini Festival, one of the most anticipated and only festival in the world dedicated to the composer, right in the heart of an area that inspired the master of his immortal melodies.
The Festival was founded in 1930 and over the years has become more and more prestigious, drawing thousands of spectators from around the world to listen to the greatest opera stars, all under the direction of important conductors, and to admire extraordinary productions curated by some of the most famous directors performing Puccini’s operas from Madama Butterfly, Turandot, La Bohème, Tosca in Manon Lescaut. Puccini’s operas are staged in a large open-air theater of 3,400 seats, by the lake, surrounded by greenery just in front the of the master Puccinis’ house.
His house is now a museum which houses the remains of the musicians life and where you can see artifacts of the glorious artistic life of Puccini.