They remained with Puccini for his next three operas and probably his greatest successes: La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly.

Puccini completed La fanciulla del West, based on a play by David Belasco, in 1910.

Puccini completed the score of La rondine, to a libretto by Giuseppe Adami in 1916 after two years of work, and it was premiered at the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo on 27 March 1917.

La bohème is an opera in four acts, by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger.

In 1930, Mascagni conducted La bohème in Torre del Lago, as a homage to Puccini, who had died in 1924.

Puccini had seen La Tosca at least twice, in Milan and Turin.

It was rebuilt and reopened on 11 May 1946, with a memorable concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini — twice La Scala's principal conductor and an associate of the composers Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini — with a soprano solo by Renata Tebaldi, which created a sensation.

Lucca is the birthplace of composers Giacomo Puccini ( La Bohème and Madama Butterfly ), Nicalao Dorati, Francesco Geminiani, Gioseffo Guami, Luigi Boccherini, and Alfredo Catalani.

* Rodolfo, La bohème ( Puccini )

* Dick Johnson, La fanciulla del West ( Puccini )

** Marcello, La bohème ( Giacomo Puccini )

** Jack Rance, La fanciulla del West ( Giacomo Puccini )

" La dinastia musicale dei Puccini: proposte e quesiti.

* La Principessa, Suor Angelica ( Puccini )

* The Puccini opera " La Bohème ", where the Café Momus is the setting for Act II, in the Latin Quarter, Paris ( although the actual Café Momus described in the original stories by Henri Murger on which the opera is based was located on the Right Bank near the church of Saint-Germain l ' Auxerrois ).

Apart from Massenet, composers whose works had their first performances at Monte Carlo included: Saint-Saëns ( Hélène, 1904 ); Mascagni ( Amica, 1905 ); and Puccini ( La rondine, 1917 ).

* La bohème by Giacomo Puccini – Turin, February 1, 1896

* La fanciulla del West by Puccini – New York, December 10, 1910

* Puccini, La bohème ( 1946 broadcast )

* 1979: Puccini: La Bohéme, La Scala Milan Orchestra & Chorus, Ileana Cotrubas, Luciano Pavarotti, Bel Canto Society

** Richard Mohr ( producer ), Georg Solti ( conductor ), Judith Blegen, Montserrat Caballe, Plácido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes, Ruggero Raimondi & the London Philharmonic for Puccini: La Bohème

*“ Theater an der Wien-Giacomo Puccini, La Boheme, Erstaufführung in Wien ,” Neue Revue, Jahrgang 8, Band 1 ( 1897 ), p. 473ff.

And if one does not synonymize " Verismo " with " bloodshed ", one could postulate that Puccini gave us the most perfect " realistic " opera in La Bohème.

* La Bohème ( Giacomo Puccini ): Tullio Serafin conducting the Orchestra dell ' Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, with Carlo Bergonzi, Gianna D ' Angelo, Ettore Bastianini.

Giacomo Puccini La Bohème ( Mimì ) – opera interpreted in première for America at Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires in 1896 and in première for Romania at Bucharest National Theatre on 15 January 1903 ;

Puccini was born in Lucca in Tuscany, into a family with five generations of musical history behind them, including the composer Domenico Puccini.

In 1880, with the help of a relative and a grant, Puccini enrolled in the Milan Conservatory to study composition with Stefano Ronchetti-Monteviti, Amilcare Ponchielli, and Antonio Bazzini.

Puccini had eloped with his former piano student, the married Elvira Gemignani, and Ricordi's associates were willing to turn a blind eye to his life style as long as he was successful.

When Edgar failed, they suggested to Ricordi that he should drop Puccini, but Ricordi said that he would stay with him and made him an allowance from his own pocket until his next opera.

Four other librettists were then involved with the opera, as Puccini constantly changed his mind about the structure of the piece.

After his death, a mausoleum was created in the Villa Puccini and the composer is buried there in the chapel, along with his wife and son who died later.

Puccini had been considering an opera on this theme since he saw the play Tosca by Victorien Sardou in 1889, when he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou's permission for the work to be made into an opera: " I see in this Tosca the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music.

In 1906 Giacosa died and, in 1909, there was scandal after Puccini's wife, Elvira, falsely accused their maid Doria Manfredi of having an affair with Puccini.

In 1909, Puccini's wife Elvira publicly accused Doria Manfredi, a maid working for the Puccini family, of having an affair with the composer.

According to documents found in the possession of a descendant of the Manfredi family, Nadia Manfredi, in 2007, Puccini was actually having an affair with Giulia Manfredi, Doria's cousin.

Some music critics and interpreters of Puccini's work have speculated that the psychological effects of this incident on Puccini interfered with his ability to complete compositions later in his career, and also influenced the development of Puccinian characters such as Liu ( from Turandot ), a slave girl who dies tragically by suicide.

Giacomo Puccini with conductor Arturo Toscanini

This was commissioned by, and first performed at, the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910 with Met stars Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn for whom Puccini created the leading roles of Dick Johnson and Minnie.

Puccini succeeded in mastering the orchestra as no other Italian had done before him, creating new forms by manipulating structures inherited from the great Italian tradition, loading them with bold harmonic progressions which had little or nothing to do with what was happening then in Italy, though they were in step with the work of French, Austrian and German colleagues.

Composers such as Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy, Giacomo Puccini, Paul Hindemith and Hans Pfitzner pushed Wagnerian harmony further with a more extreme use of chromaticism and greater use of dissonance.

That year, he had disputes with Ruggiero Leoncavallo and Giacomo Puccini.

In October he was reconciled with Puccini.

Puccini first began working on Turandot in March 1920 after meeting with librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.

Alfano provided a first version of the ending with a few passages of his own, and even a few sentences added to the libretto which was not considered complete even by Puccini himself.

As with Madama Butterfly, Puccini strove for a semblance of Asian authenticity ( at least to Western ears ) by using music from the region in question.