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 Helyett (opera) Miss Helyett (opera) Miss Helyett is an opérette in three acts with music by Edmond Audran and words by Maxime Boucheron. It depicts the complications ensuing when the excessively puritanical heroine believes herself duty-bound to marry an unknown man who, in rescuing her from a serious fall in the Pyrenees, has been unable to avoid seeing the exposed lower half of her body. The piece was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens on 12 November 1890. Productions followed in continental Europe, Britain, the US and Australia. The most recent revival in Paris was in 1921, and the piece remained