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
Aria di sorbetto known as "sherbet arias" because of what they signified to the audience. The "aria di sorbetto" was usually given to a secondary character, and was inserted into a scene which had little bearing on the plot of the opera, except tangentially. The character would normally be one who had had no other solo opportunities in the piece. Because the aria was so unimportant, its composition would often be handed off to an inferior composer, one who received no credit for his efforts. Today, most performances keep the "aria di sorbetto" intact, rather than cutting it, and audiences are expected to