Giacomo Puccini were Puccini's contemporaries, drew express parallels between these incidents and particular events in the opera. Checchi cited a diary kept by Puccini while he was still a student, which recorded an occasion in which, as in Act 4 of the opera, a single herring served as a dinner for four people. Puccini himself commented: "I lived that "Bohème", when there wasn't yet any thought stirring in my brain of seeking the theme of an opera". ("") Puccini's composition of "La bohème" was the subject of a public dispute between Puccini and fellow composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo. In early 1893, the two
Giacomo Puccini thesis composition for the Milan Conservatory. Puccini's teachers Ponchielli and Bazzini were impressed by the work, and it was performed at a student concert at the conservatory on 14 July 1883, conducted by Franco Faccio. Puccini's work was favorably reviewed in the Milanese publication "Perseveranza", and thus Puccini began to build a reputation as a young composer of promise in Milanese music circles. After the premiere of the "Capriccio sinfonico", Ponchielli and Puccini discussed the possibility that Puccini's next work might be an opera. Ponchielli invited Puccini to stay at his villa, where Puccini was introduced to another young man