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
The Judgement of Paris (opera) The Judgement of Paris (opera) The Judgement of Paris is an operatic libretto written by William Congreve. It was set by four British Baroque composers - John Weldon, John Eccles, Daniel Purcell and Gottfried Finger - as part of a music competition held in 1700-1701. Thomas Arne later composed a score to the libretto in 1742. Setting: Mount Ida The god Mercury descends from the sky with the golden apple of Discord and asks the shepherd Paris to award it to whichever of the three goddesses - Juno, Pallas and Venus - he finds most worthy. Juno offers him worldly