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
Maria Maksakova Jr. de Perles" by Georges Bizet), among others. In 2002 Maksakova was among the Yelena Obraztsova Young opera singers competition's winners and a year later she joined the Bolshoi as a guest soloist, appearing as Oscar ("Un ballo in maschera" by Giuseppe Verdi) and Musetta ("La Boheme" by Giacomo Puccini). In 2006 she joined the Moscow Helikon-Opera and there appeared as The Princess in Antonín Dvořák's "Rusalka", Rosina in "II Barbiere di Siviglia", Susanna in Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro" and others. In 2011 Maksakova joined the Mariinsky Opera Company where she sings Dorabella ("Cosi fan tutte"), Cherubino ("Le nozze di