Turandot Puccini. He left behind 36 pages of sketches on 23 sheets for the end of "Turandot". Some sketches were in the form of "piano-vocal" or "short score," including vocal lines with "two to four staves of accompaniment with occasional notes on orchestration." These sketches supplied music for some, but not all, of the final portion of the libretto. Puccini left instructions that Riccardo Zandonai should finish the opera. Puccini's son Tonio objected, and eventually Franco Alfano was chosen to flesh out the sketches after Vincenzo Tommasini (who had completed Boito's "Nerone" after the composer's death) and Pietro Mascagni were rejected.
Giacomo Puccini only uncontested triumph, acclaimed by critics and public alike." After the London premiere in 1894, George Bernard Shaw pronounced: "Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals." "Manon Lescaut" was a great success and established Puccini's reputation as the most promising rising composer of his generation, and the most likely "successor" to Verdi as the leading exponent of the Italian operatic tradition. Illica and Giacosa returned as librettists for Puccini for his next three operas, probably his greatest successes: "La bohème", "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly". Puccini's next work after "Manon Lescaut" was "La