Press reports at the time when these documents were discovered alleged that Nadia Manfredi was Puccini's granddaughter, by a son, Antonio Manfredi, born to Giulia.

He was also an imposing, sinister Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca, a swaggering Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen and a powerful Tonio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

He portrayed several more roles with the NYCO over the next seven years, including Dessalines in William Grant Still's Troubled Island ( 1949 ), the four villains in Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann ( 1949 ), Escamillo in Georges Bizet's Carmen ( 1949 ), Tchelio in Sergei Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges ( 1950 ), Tonio in Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci ( 1950 ), Timur in Giacomo Puccini's Turandot ( 1950 ), Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana ( 1950 ), The Messenger in the world premiere of David Tamkin's The Dybbuk ( 1951 ), the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto ( 1951 ), King Balthazar in Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors ( 1952 ), Colline in Puccini's La bohème ( 1952 ), the title role in Béla Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle ( 1953 ), Count Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro ( 1954 ), Joe in Show Boat ( 1954 ), Germont in Verdi's La Traviata ( 1955 ), and Diomede in the New York premiere of William Walton's Troilus and Cressida ( 1955 ) among others.

Turandot, Puccini's final opera, was left unfinished, and the last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano based on the composer's sketches.

* Turandot, libretto by Renato Simoni and Giuseppe Adami ( incomplete at the time of Puccini's death, completed by Franco Alfano: premiered at La Scala, 25 April 1926

The opera was unfinished at the time of Puccini's death in 1924 and was completed by Franco Alfano in 1926.

There were, however, many other veristi: Franco Alfano, best known however for completing Puccini's Turandot, Alfredo Catalani, Gustave Charpentier ( Louise ), Eugen d ' Albert ( Tiefland ), Ignatz Waghalter ( Der Teufelsweg and Jugend ), Alberto Franchetti, Franco Leoni, Jules Massenet ( La Navarraise ), Licinio Refice, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, ( I gioielli della Madonna ), and Riccardo Zandonai.

Gobbi famously sang the part of Scarpia in the legendary 1964 Franco Zeffirelli production of Puccini's Tosca at Covent Garden, with soprano Maria Callas in the title role.

The only recording to follow Puccini's score exactly was the very first, sung by Gina Cigna and Francesco Merli, conducted by Franco Ghione.

Puccini's editor Giulio Ricordi decided on Alfano because his opera La leggenda di Sakùntala resembled Turandot in its setting and heavy orchestration.

Scrutiny of the sketches, which Ricordi later allowed scholars to analyze and sometimes publish, showed that Alfano actually did not even try to use most of Puccini's short sketches, with the exception of those with an obvious placement and one short theme he freely transformed and used for the sake of stylistic continuity.

#[...] 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.

Manon Lescaut was a great success and laid the foundations for Puccini's career and reputation.

Original poster for Puccini's ToscaLa bohème was premiered in Turin in 1896, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

It was followed by Tosca ( 1900 ), arguably Puccini's first foray into verismo, the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence.

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.

Puccini's 1919 Inno a Roma ( Hymn to Rome ), although not written for the Fascists, was widely played during Fascist street parades and public ceremonies.

This gumption in musical experimentation was the essence of Puccini's style, as evidenced in his diverse settings and use of the motif to express ideas beyond those in the story and text.

This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci that came virtually to dominate the world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini's La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly.

However, it was outshone by Puccini's opera of the same name and on the same subject, which was premiered in 1896.

The libretto for Edipo Re was written by Giovacchino Forzano, who also wrote Il piccolo Marat for Pietro Mascagni and two of the one-act operas for Puccini's Il trittico.

Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot by Carlo Gozzi.

After the severe criticisms by Ricordi and the conductor Arturo Toscanini, he was forced to write a second, strictly censored version that followed Puccini's sketches more closely, to the point where he did not set some of Adami's text to music because Puccini had not indicated how he wanted it to sound.

The premiere of Turandot was at La Scala, Milan, on Sunday 25 April 1926, one year and five months after Puccini's death, with Rosa Raisa in the title role.

As discussed, the music for Liù's death was not in fact Puccini's final composition, but had been orchestrated some nine months earlier.

A major milestone for the company was a television recording of Puccini's Tosca filmed in 1968 at the Adelaide Festival.

His New York Metropolitan Opera debut was in 1988, conducting Giacomo Puccini's La bohème with Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni.

As a prison, it was also the setting for the third act of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca from whose ramparts the eponymous heroine of the opera leaps to her death.

The title role in Puccini's Tosca, which she had added to her repertoire in 1909, was another one of her favourite Met parts.

At this time Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler was performing at the theatre and the following opera to be performed was Puccini's Turandot.

In 2001 Luciano Berio made a new sanctioned completion, using Puccini's sketches but also expanding the musical language, but this has received a mixed reception.

Members of this generation were the dominant figures in Italian music after Puccini's death in 1924 ; they had their counterparts in Italian literature and painting.

Edgar, Puccini's second opera, was composed on a commission from the publisher Ricordi after the successful reception of his first stage work, Le Villi.

* Tommasini, Anthony, " Thwarting Love and Greed In Puccini's Three One-Acts ", New York Times, September 12, 2002

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.

Gheorghiu said in a statement that she had missed some rehearsals to spend time with her husband, who was singing at the Met in Roméo et Juliette and rehearsing for Puccini's Madama Butterfly and added " I have sung ' Boheme ' hundreds of times, and thought missing a few rehearsals wouldn't be a tragedy.

At the age of nineteen he conducted Puccini's Turandot in Brno on short notice in place of Chalabala, who had become ill. Tauský was of Jewish ancestry, and the rise of the Nazis forced him to move to France.

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.

Like Volpone, and Puccini's opera Gianni Schicchi, this is a story of a con-man who convinces others that he is near death, and turns their greed against them for his own gain.

Paul Potts is a British tenor vocalist who in 2007 became the winner of the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent, singing an operatic aria, " Nessun Dorma " from Giacomo Puccini's Turandot.

He had presented the first German performances of Puccini's Manon Lescaut and De Falla's La Vida Breve.

With Wagner came an emphasis on vocal heft for his protagonist roles, with this vocal category described as Heldentenor ; this heroic voice had its more Italianate counterpart in such roles as Calaf in Puccini's Turandot.

Puccini's publisher, Ricordi, had been against any project based on Prévost's story, because Massenet had already made it into a successful opera, Manon, in 1884.