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
Julianna Di Giacomo and Hasmik Papian as Norma. In 2008 she made her debut with Opera Grand Rapids as Countess Almaviva in "The Marriage of Figaro". In 2009 she made her first appearance at La Scala as Lucrezia Contarini in "I due Foscari" under the baton of Stefano Ranzani. In 2010 Di Giacomo returned to the Met as Lina in "Stiffelio" and Leonora in "Il trovatore" in 2010. In December 2010 she performed the world premiere of Thomas Pasatieri's "Bel Canto Songs" for the George London Foundation Recital Series at the Morgan Library. In 2011 he returned to the Caramoor Festival to perform