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 "Edgar" preceded "Cavalleria rusticana". Some view Puccini as essentially a "verismo" composer, while others, although acknowledging that he took part in the movement to some degree, do not view him as a "pure" "verismo" composer. In addition, critics differ as to the degree to which particular operas by Puccini are, or are not, properly described as "verismo" operas. Two of Puccini's operas, "Tosca" and "Il tabarro," are universally considered to be "verismo" operas. Puccini scholar Mosco Carner places only two of Puccini's operas other than "Tosca" and "Il tabarro" within the "verismo" school: "Madama Butterfly", and "La fanciulla del West."