While studying at the Conservatory, Puccini obtained a libretto from Ferdinando Fontana and entered a competition for a one-act opera in 1882.

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.

Ricordi persuaded him to accept Ruggero Leoncavallo as his librettist, but Puccini soon asked Ricordi to remove him from the project.

From 1891 onwards, Puccini spent most of his time at Torre del Lago, a small community about fifteen miles from Lucca situated between the Ligurian Sea and Lake Massaciuccoli, just south of Viareggio.

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.

Puccini died there on 29 November 1924, from complications after the treatment ; uncontrolled bleeding led to a heart attack the day after surgery.

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.

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.

In 1881, Ponchielli was appointed maestro di cappella of the Bergamo Cathedral, and from the same year he was a professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory, where among his students were Puccini, Mascagni and Emilio Pizzi.

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 ).

His work there included a highly controversial staging of Strauss ’ Salome with sets by Salvador Dalí and also an effective re-staging of Puccini ’ s La Boheme using sets dating from 1899.

In " Identity Crisis ", murderer Nelson Brenner ( Patrick McGoohan ) bugs Columbo's home and learns Mrs. Columbo's favorite piece of music is Madama Butterfly from Giacomo Puccini.

Rosvaenge appeared in a wide spectrum of roles ranging from Mozart to Weber, from Verdi to Puccini.

His orchestral repertoire numbered over 450 works from all periods, and was matched by a repertoire of some sixty operas ranging from Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and Wagner to the more contemporary Prokofiev, Bartók, Britten, Kodály, Poulenc and Janáček.

Though la Castafiore is obviously Italian, her pet aria is from a French opera ( Faust was composed by Charles Gounod ) rather than the Verdi, Puccini, or Donizetti one might expect from a star of La Scala.

They ranged from Figaro, through Donizetti and the standard Verdi and Puccini parts, to Wozzeck.

Bergonzi as Pinkerton from Giacomo Puccini | Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

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 ).

#[...] it is not his conclusion that is performed in productions of Turandot but only what the premiere conductor Arturo Toscanini included from it ... Puccini had worked for nine months on the following concluding duet and at his death had left behind a whole ream of sketches ... Alfano had to reconstruct ... according to his best assessment ... and with his imagination and magnifying glass " since Puccini's material " had not really been legible.

He made a brief appearance in the 1936 Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald film Rose Marie, singing music from Charles Gounod's Romeo et Juliette and Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, but according to Merchant of Dreams, Charles Higham's biography of Louis B. Mayer, Eddy, who apparently considered Jones a rival and a potential threat, asked that most of Jones's footage in Rose Marie be cut, including his rendition of the great Puccini aria E lucevan le stelle-and MGM agreed to Eddy's demand.

This scene is accompanied by the aria " Un bel Dì ", the suicide scene from Madama Butterfly ( Puccini ).

An annual Festival Puccini is held at Torre del Lago.

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 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.

In 1926 his son arranged for the transfer of his father's remains to a specially created chapel inside the Puccini villa at Torre del Lago.

He wrote to a friend that he supported Benito Mussolini at first ; Mussolini also made Puccini a senator shortly before the latter's death.

In 2007, he designed stage and costumes for Puccini's Madama Butterfly at the Festival Puccini 2007 in Torre del Lago.

The United Kingdom premiere took place at the Theatre Royal in Manchester, on 22 April 1897, in a presentation by the Carl Rosa Opera Company supervised by Puccini.

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

When Sardou indicated his unease at entrusting his most successful work to the as-yet-unproven Puccini, whose music he did not like, Puccini took offence.

He learned more than 100 roles in his lifetime and was mostly known for his roles in Verdi and Puccini operas, including appearances as Scarpia opposite soprano Maria Callas as Tosca at Covent Garden.

Mysto the Magician appeals to a snobbish opera singer, the Great Poochini ( a pun on opera composer Giacomo Puccini ), to let him perform an opening act at the show that night.

* Puccini: La Bohème Ileana Cotrubaş with Luciano Pavarotti and Piero Cappuccilli, conducted by Carlos Kleiber, live recording at La Scala, Milan 22 March 1979 EX92T01 / 2 CD

On taking up the conductorship of the Hallé he had less opportunity to work in the opera house, but in the 1950s he conducted productions of works by Verdi, Wagner, Gluck, and Puccini at Covent Garden with such success that he was invited to become the company's permanent musical director, an invitation he declined.

He wrote the musical Cafe Puccini at the age of 45, which opened at the Wyndham's Theatre in 1986 with musical director William Blezard.

* August 24-Festival Puccini is launched at Torre del Lago.

In the 1930s, the company presented standard repertoire works including operas by Mozart, Verdi, Wagner and Puccini, lighter works by Balfe, Donizetti, Offenbach and Johann Strauss, some novelties, among which were operas by Holst, Ethel Smyth and Charles Villiers Stanford, and an unusual attempt at staging an oratorio, Mendelssohn's Elijah.

That career began in earnest with Del Monaco's debut on December 31, 1940, as Pinkerton at the Puccini Theater in Milan.

* Budden, Julian, Puccini: His Life and Works, Oxford University Press, 2002 ISBN 978-0-19-816468-5

* Randall, Annie J. and David, Rosalind G., Puccini & the Girl, Chicago: University of Chicago Press ISDN 0226703894

* Wilson, Alexandra, The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity, Cambridge University Press ( 2007 )

* Budden, Julian ( 2002 ) Puccini: His Life and Works, Oxford University Press.