Giacomo Puccini refuting the allegations made against her. Elvira Puccini was prosecuted for slander, and was sentenced to more than five months in prison, although a payment to the Manfredi family by Puccini spared Elvira from having to serve the sentence. Some music critics and interpreters of Puccini's work have speculated that the psychological effects of this incident on Puccini interfered with his ability to complete compositions later in his career, and also influenced the development of his characters such as Liù (from "Turandot"), a slave girl who dies tragically by suicide. According to documents found in the possession of a descendant
Verismo (music) earlier Italian opera. Instead, the operas were "through-composed," with few breaks in a seamlessly integrated sung text. While "verismo" operas may contain arias that can be sung as stand-alone pieces, they are generally written to arise naturally from their dramatic surroundings, and their structure is variable, being based on text that usually does not follow a regular strophic format. The most famous composers who created works in the "verismo" style were Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and Francesco Cilea. There were, however, many other "veristi": Franco Alfano, Alfredo Catalani, Gustave Charpentier ("Louise"), Eugen d'Albert ("Tiefland"), Ignatz Waghalter