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
Torna ai felici dì Iddio, del mio destin quest'è la meta... Fa che il perdono, fa che il perdon La renda lieta un solo istante e poi morrò! Pregar non posso! Ah, maledetto il dì Che andai lontan di qui! Maledetta sia la tua bellezza, o cortigiana vil... Maledetta in eterno! Maledetta!</poem> Torna ai felici dì "Torna ai felici dì" ("Return to the happy days") is a tenor aria from act 2 of the 1884 opera, "Le Villi" by Giacomo Puccini. It is sung by Roberto as he mourns the loss of the days of his youth and his beloved Anna. Anna has been