Giacomo Puccini remained popular. "Turandot", Puccini's final opera, was left unfinished, and the last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano based on the composer's sketches. The libretto for "Turandot" was based on a play of the same name by Carlo Gozzi. The music of the opera is heavily inflected with pentatonic motifs, intended to produce an Asiatic flavor to the music. Unlike "La fanciulla", "Turandot" contains a number of memorable stand-alone arias, among them "Nessun dorma". The libretto of "Edgar" was a significant factor in the failure of that opera. Thereafter, especially throughout his middle and late career, Puccini was extremely
Franco Alfano (then Breslau) as "Die Quelle von Enschir" on 8 November 1898. It enjoyed some success. There followed the opera "Risurrezione" in 1904. It was based on Tolstoy, and was later sung by Magda Olivero. "Cyrano de Bergerac" followed. This based on the famous play by Edmond Rostand and composed to the French libretto by Henri Cain. It had its Italian version premiere in Rome in January 1936, and its French version premiere in Paris four months later. It was recently revived by the Kiel Opera (Germany), the Montpellier Radio Festival (France) and the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, starring Plácido