Festival Puccini produced the first performances of a Puccini opera on the lake shore, in front of the Maestro's house. In a provisional theatre, the "Carro di Tespi Lirico" with its stage built on piles stuck in the lake, a travelling opera company performed "La bohème" directed by Forzano and conducted by Mascagni. The same company came back in 1931 when Beniamino Gigli and Adelaide Saraceni performed in "La bohème", while Rosetta Pampanini and Angelo Michetti performed "Madama Butterfly". This was the beginning of what was to become a major opera festival. However, in the years before 1949, due to the political
Musical theatre box office successes, with the notable exceptions of "Fiddler on the Roof", "Cabaret" and "Grease". The 1980s saw the influence of European "mega-musicals", or "pop operas", on Broadway, in the West End and elsewhere. These typically featured a pop-influenced score, had large casts and sets and were identified by their notable effects – a falling chandelier (in "The Phantom of the Opera"), a helicopter landing on stage (in "Miss Saigon") – and big budgets. Many were based on novels or other works of literature. The most important writers of mega-musicals include the French team of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil,