This chapter considers important female figures in Puccini’s circle. It begins by outlining Puccini’s relationship with his mother, Albina, who died relatively early in the composer’s life, and with his six sisters. The author then discusses Puccini’s relationship with his wife, Elvira, in some detail, considering the circumstances in which the couple met and their subsequent rather strained relationship. Puccini’s affairs with other women are considered, and particular attention is paid to the Doria Manfredi scandal, when a young woman wrongly accused of an affair with the composer committed suicide. The author discusses Puccini’s step-daughter and granddaughter, Simonetta. She also considers his platonic relationships with female friends, most importantly Sybil Seligman.

Chapter 4 sets out and assesses the role played by Cardinal Howard in restoring the English Province and in organising its mission through the establishment of a priory and school at Bornhem, a nunnery at Brussels, a house in Rome, and, by a bequest in his will, a college at Louvain. It looks at how these houses functioned within the restored Province, the growing importance of the school for recruitment, and reveals the houses’ financial dependence on lay benefactors, before the friars and nuns were forced to flee in 1794 when the French occupied the Low Countries.

Geographical and linguistic factors are intimately connected with one another. In this chapter we shall be examining some of these fascinating geolinguistic issues.

The chapter explores marriage litigation in Northern France and the German-speaking regions. It utilizes a distinction from late medieval Xanten between “simple” and “double” suits. The former pitted claimant against defendant, the latter showed several parties competing for the same partner. The preponderance of simple petitions especially in Germany is indicative of judges passively waiting for litigants to approach them. In fifteenth-century Cambrai and Brussels, the bishop installed a promoter for expert management of the accusations. He served to support persons whose case he found worthwhile or acted as instigator like a modern state attorney. Double proceedings at Cambrai nearly matched the simple ones and considerably outnumbered them at Brussels. Most of the multiparty suits arose when couples had their wedding banns announced in the parish church. At that moment, a person identified as the “opponent” in the sources came forward and objected to the validity of the proposed union. Regardless of the promoter, the courts of the North adjudicated in uniform fashion. They confronted many dozens if not hundreds of marriage cases. A mere handful of them met juristic criteria. The rest would stay within the limits of pastoral concern and lead to certain defeat.

Attention in this final chapter is directed to the private passions of church personnel as revealed in the executors’ accounts of deceased canons, and in particular Jacques de Houchin, remarkable for his bibliophilic sophistication and (apparently) private music-making. Houchin’s book collection at death ran to more than 300 volumes, including large numbers of classical texts, making him one of the most significant private bibliophiles of his age. He also possessed a large number of music books and musical instruments. Centred on this one man’s proclivities, the chapter paints a picture of private music-making within the confines of the church and its cloister, involving canons, vicars and choirboys.

While it is acknowledged that by 1879 Carmen was a global phenomenon, this chapter examines its reception in the French provinces, revealing the contributing factors which brought it back to the Opéra-Comique in 1883. The picture revealed by the work’s reception in the wake of Bizet’s untimely death, in Brussels, Lyon, Toulouse, Marseilles, Lille and Bordeaux is complex; the relationship of individual provinces with the centre, Bizet hagiography (or lack of), concerns of genre and the perennity of opéra-comique, the difficulty of the score along with its performers are all debates which contribute to a growing critical mass brought to bear upon Léon Carvalho in Paris. In addition, Galli-Marié is revealed as instrumental in the revival of the work, not only through her lobbying of the principal actors, but also through her touring activities. Thus the diverse and evolving French opinions of Bizet’s Carmen, formulated over a period of four years in parallel to the work’s international reputation, are analysed for the first time, revealing national pressures which brought Carmen ‘home’ in 1883.

In 1902, the Théâtre royal de la Monnaie presented a new Carmen in replacement of its original production of 1876. Though the Monnaie’s managers, Kufferath and Guidé, officially aimed at a ‘reconstruction’ (reconstitution) of Bizet’s classic, stage manager Charles De Beer radically updated the mise en scène through such naturalistic features as multiple-level platforms and asymmetrical, panoramic stage sets. An instant hit, the staging enjoyed revivals until 1949 and transferred to four other Belgian venues. This chapter seeks to explain that remarkable success. Focusing on the scenography by Albert Dubosq, the author first outlines the Belgian background against which the new version made its mark. Analytical observations on the 1902 Carmen are then drawn, not just from historical photographs and newspaper reviews, but also from life-size replicas of Dubosq’s flats and drops surviving in Courtray. The essay concludes by contradicting a tenacious master-narrative, according to which operatic staging became stagnant in the naturalistic era; instead, numerous innovations were introduced within a traditional, illusionistic framework.