Giacomo Puccini Because only three "verismo" works by Puccini continue to appear regularly on stage (the aforementioned "Cavalleria rusticana", "Pagliacci", and "Andrea Chénier"), Puccini's contribution has had lasting significance to the genre. Both during his lifetime and in posterity, Puccini's success outstripped other Italian opera composers of his time, and he has been matched in this regard by only a handful of composers in the entire history of opera. Eleven of Puccini's operas are numbered among the 200 most-performed operas (worldwide, by composers of any nationality, as surveyed by Operabase). Three of his works ("La bohème", "Tosca", and "Madama Butterfly") rank among
Miss Julie (Rorem opera) Miss Julie (Rorem opera) Miss Julie is an opera by Ned Rorem to an English libretto by Kenward Elmslie, based on the play, "Miss Julie" by Swedish playwright August Strindberg on the subject of the intersection of social class and illicit sexual relations in late 19th-century Sweden. The opera was commissioned by the New York City Opera, and had its first performance there on 4 November 1965, in its original two-hour, two-act version. The production was conducted by Robert Zeller and directed by Nikos Psacharopoulos with scenic and lighting design by Will Steven Armstrong, costume design by Patton Campbell, and