Giacomo Puccini was born in 1858 into an Italian family with a long history in music. At the age of 5, Puccini’s father died and he was sent to live and study with his uncle, who considered him to be a poor and undisciplined student. After years of study he became a church organist, and after seeing a performance of Verdi’s Aida he was inspired to write opera.
From 1880 to 1883 Puccini studied at the Milan Conservatory, where he wrote his first true operas. In 1882, Puccini entered a one-act opera competition. Although he did not win, Le Villi was later given its first staging in 1884; it also caught the attention of the publisher Giulio Ricordi, who commissioned a second opera (Edgar).
By the time Puccini wrote his third opera, Manon Lescaut, he began to be recognized as a master of opera composition. Additionally, this piece began his relationship with the librettests Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, who worked with him on his next three operas. The first of these, La Bohème, is considered one of his best works, as well as one of the finest examples of Italian opera. His next opera, Tosca, was Puccini’s first foray into verismo, the art of true-to-life realism in opera. Madame Butterfly (based on a play by David Belasco) was greeted with hostility at its opening, but has since grown to be considered a romantic masterpiece.
1918 saw the premiere of Il Trittico, three one-act operas comprising a horrific episode (Il Tabarro), a sentimental tragedy (Suor Angelica) and a raucous comedy (Gianni Schicchi). Of the three, Gianni Schicchi and Suor Angelica are the most popular and are often performed as a double bill.
Puccini died in Brussels, Belgium in 1924 from complications due to treatment for throat cancer. Turandot, his last opera, was left unfinished; the last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano.