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
Giacomo Di Chirico Giacomo Di Chirico Giacomo Ernesto Eduardo Di Chirico (27 January 1844 – 26 December 1883) was an Italian painter. Together with Domenico Morelli and Filippo Palizzi, he was one of the most elite of the 19th century. Giacomo Di Chirico was born in Venosa into a carpenter's family, the younger son of Luigi and Caterina Savino. In 1847, when Di Chirico was barely 3 years old, his father Luigi died, leaving the family impoverished. He attended a private school for boys from deprived families under the supervision of priest Giuseppe Gianturco, the brother of politician . He began working at