Opera After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" and Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" that came to dominate the world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini's "La bohème", "Tosca", and "Madama Butterfly". Later Italian composers, such as Berio and Nono, have experimented with modernism. The first German opera was "Dafne", composed by Heinrich Schütz in 1627, but the music score has not survived. Italian opera held a great sway over German-speaking countries until the late 18th century. Nevertheless, native forms would develop in spite of this
Opera House, Royal Tunbridge Wells Handel's "Tamerlano". More recently there have been annual performances by Kent-based ‘The Merry Opera Company’ with "Troy Boy", "La traviata", "The Magic Flute", "Kiss Me, Figaro!", The Barber of Seville, and in 2016, La Boheme. The interior was designed in Edwardian Baroque and Neo-Georgian styles. The exterior includes a Baroque dome on the roof. The dome originally had a nude statue of Mercury on the top, which was removed in the 1920s, either because it was unstable in poor weather or was viewed as sinful by local residents. In 1923, the main staircase was altered to include an 18th-century painting