Italian opera revisited, history was retold and imagination was stimulated. The strength of it fell into a more violent era for opera: verismo, with "Cavalleria rusticana" by Pietro Mascagni and "Pagliacci" by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Some of the greatest Italian operas of the 20th century were written by Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924). These include "Manon Lescaut", "La bohème", "Tosca", "Madama Butterfly", "La fanciulla del West", "La rondine" and "Turandot", the last two being left unfinished. In 1926 and in 2002 Franco Alfano and Luciano Berio respectively attempted a completion of "Turandot", and in 1994 Lorenzo Ferrero completed the orchestration of the third version of
Giacomo Puccini selective, and at times indecisive, in his choice of subject matter for new works. Puccini was deeply involved in the process of writing the libretto itself, requiring many iterative revisions of his libretti in terms of both structure and text. Puccini's relationships with his librettists were at times very difficult. His publisher, Casa Ricordi, was frequently required to mediate disputes and impasses between them. Puccini explored many possible subjects that he ultimately rejected only after a significant amount of effort—such as the creation of a libretto—had been put into them. Among the subjects that Puccini seriously considered, but abandoned, were: