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
Giacomo Puccini composers discovered that they were both engaged in writing operas based on Murger's work. Leoncavallo had started his work first, and he and his music publisher claimed to have "priority" on the subject (although Murger's work was in the public domain). Puccini responded that he started his own work without having any knowledge of Leoncavallo's project, and wrote: "Let him compose. I will compose. The audience will decide." Puccini's opera premiered a year before that of Leoncavallo, and has been a perennial audience favorite, while Leoncavallo's version of the story was quick to fade into obscurity. Puccini's next work after