Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi,[2] he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late Baroque era.

Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-nineteenth-century Romantic Italian opera, it later developed in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.

His most renowned works are La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and the unfinished Turandot (posthumously completed by Franco Alfano), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded in the entirety of the operatic repertoire.

[3] Puccini's father Michele enjoyed a reputation throughout northern Italy, and his funeral was an occasion of public mourning, at which the then-famed composer Giovanni Pacini conducted a Requiem.

In 1880 Puccini achieved a diploma from Lucca's Pacini School of Music, having studied there with Magi, and later with Carlo Angeloni, who had also instructed Alfredo Catalani.

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

[14] In anticipation of the premiere, La Stampa wrote that Puccini was a young man concerning whom "great hopes" had a real basis ("un giovane che è tra i pochi sul quale le larghe speranze non siano benigne illusioni").

"[17] Manon Lescaut was a great success and established Puccini's reputation as the most promising rising composer of his generation, and the most likely "successor" to Verdi as the leading exponent of the Italian operatic tradition.

Although Puccini was granted a small monthly stipend by the Congregation of Charity in Rome (Congregazione di caritá), he frequently had to pawn his possessions to cover basic expenses.

[3][20] Early biographers such as Wakeling Dry and Eugenio Checchi, who were Puccini's contemporaries, drew express parallels between these incidents and particular events in the opera.

[3][20] Checchi cited a diary kept by Puccini while he was still a student, which recorded an occasion in which, as in Act 4 of the opera, a single herring served as a dinner for four people.

("Quella Bohème io l'ho vissuta, quando ancora non mi mulinava nel cervello l'idea di cercarvi l'argomento per un'opera in musica.

Rejecting the allegation that Tosca displayed Wagnerian influences, a critic reporting on the Torino premiere of 20 February 1900 wrote: "I don't think you could find a more Puccinian score than this.

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 ("The Swallow") 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 rondine was initially conceived as an operetta, but Puccini eliminated spoken dialogue, rendering the work closer in form to an opera.

A modern reviewer described La rondine as "a continuous fabric of lilting waltz tunes, catchy pop-styled melodies, and nostalgic love music," while characterizing the plot as recycling characters and incidents from works like 'La traviata' and 'Die Fledermaus'.

[43] Among the subjects that Puccini seriously considered, but abandoned, were: Cristoforo Sly, Anima Allegra (based on the play El genio alegre by Serafín and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero), Two Little Wooden Shoes (I due zoccoletti) (a short story by Maria Louise Ramé, a.k.a.

Ouida), the life of Marie Antoinette, Margherita da Cortona, and Conchita (based on the novel La Femme et le pantin – The Woman and the Puppet, by Pierre Loüys).

[21] From 1891 onwards, Puccini spent most of his time, when not travelling on business, at Torre del Lago, a small community about fifteen miles from Lucca situated between the Ligurian Sea and Lake Massaciuccoli, just south of Viareggio.

In the autumn of 1884, in Lucca, Puccini began a relationship with a married woman named Elvira Gemignani (née Bonturi; 1860–1930), a former piano student of his.

[45] Blanke and Puccini exchanged love letters until 1911, when he started an affair with German aristocrat Baroness Josephine von Stangel, which lasted for six years.

Puccini was no longer alive when Mussolini announced the end of representative government and the beginning of a fascist dictatorship, in his speech before the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January 1925.

Puccini died in Brussels on 29 November 1924, aged 65, from complications after the treatment; uncontrolled bleeding led to a heart attack the day after surgery.

In 1926, on the 2nd anniversary of his death, his son arranged to transfer his father's remains to a specially created chapel inside the Puccini villa at Torre del Lago.

[60] Music historians also refer to Puccini as a component of the giovane scuola ("young school"), a cohort of composers who came onto the Italian operatic scene as Verdi's career came to an end, such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and others mentioned below.

[7] Italian opera composers of the generation with whom Puccini was compared included Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945), Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919), Umberto Giordano (1867–1948), Francesco Cilea (1866–1950), Baron Pierantonio Tasca (1858–1934), Gaetano Coronaro (1852–1908), and Alberto Franchetti (1860–1942).

[71] 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.

[73] Some have explicitly condemned his efforts to please his audience, such as this contemporary Italian critic: He willingly stops himself at minor genius, stroking the taste of the public ... obstinately shunning too-daring innovation ... A little heroism, but not taken to great heights; a little bit of veristic comedy, but brief; a lot of sentiment and romantic idyll: this is the recipe in which he finds happiness.

([E]gli si arresta volentieri alla piccola genialità, accarezzando il gusto del pubblico ... rifuggendo ostinato dalle troppo ardite innovazioni.