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 Puccini wife never knew how serious the cancer was, as the news was revealed only to his son. Puccini died in Brussels on 29 November 1924, aged 65, from complications after the treatment; uncontrolled bleeding led to a heart attack the day after surgery. News of his death reached Rome during a performance of "La bohème". The opera was immediately stopped, and the orchestra played Chopin's "Funeral March" for the stunned audience. He was buried in Milan, in Toscanini's family tomb, but that was always intended as a temporary measure. In 1926 his son arranged for the transfer of his father's