Met’s Puccini expert dies, 75
RIPThe death has been recorded of Michael Kaye, author of The Unknown Puccini.
He was a former staff member at the Met.
Michael Kaye, 75, of Tamarac, FL, passed away on Sunday, August 27, 2023, at his home in Tamarac, FL. He was born on January 4, 1948.
Michael was an esteemed musicologist whose work on Puccini and Offenbach has had a deep impact on singers and on opera itself. He was a respected educator, scholar and a good friend. He was a former member of the musical and artistic staffs of opera companies in the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Opera.
RIP. His book “The Unknown Puccini” is well worth a read if the composer interests you.
Rather more than author of a book on Puccini. He is the editor of a definitive edition of Offenbach’s work.
I know he was instrumental in the critical edition of Hoffmann, but don’t think he was editor of most of the Offenbach edition. That would be Keck.
There has been a lot of talk on this site recently about “musicologists” and “musicology” programs and degrees in various universities. Evidently the word, and the discipline it connotes, have come to be applied to something very different than what I have understood the word to mean, with some extreme and bewildering examples being set forth.
This man, Michael Kaye, was a musicologist as I would use the word and as I have always understood the word to mean. It is an important function and important discipline for functioning musicians, and some on this site are seemingly pleased to see it jettisoned from university curricula. Better I think to find a new word for whatever this new discipline really is, and return musicology to its actual meaning.