Giacomo Puccini "La bohème" was "Tosca" (1900), arguably Puccini's first foray into "verismo", the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence. Puccini had been considering an opera on this theme since he saw the play "Tosca" by Victorien Sardou in 1889, when he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou's permission for the work to be made into an opera: "I see in this "Tosca" the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music." The music of "Tosca" employs musical signatures for
Music in Paris founded in 1753, it hosted the first performances of Bizet's "Carmen" and of "Pelléas et Mélisande" by Claude Debussy, and the French premieres of the operas of Puccini. In recent years the historic theater went through economic difficulties, and the permanent company was disbanded in 1972, but the theater continues to present productions by several different companies of both classical and new works of opera and musical theater. The building was closed in 2015 for eighteen months of extensive renovations. Musical theater became very popular in Paris in the mid-19th century, largely because of the witty and well-crafted musical works