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
Madame Butterfly (short story) Henry Hwang wrote a play entitled "M. Butterfly" which is a commentary on the racist stereotypes in the Puccini opera. Despite the tragic tone of the play, Hwang obviously satirizes Western ignorance about Asia and the fantasy of the passive Asian woman. David Cronenberg adapted the play into a film in 1993. The production of the play caught the attention of Giacomo Puccini, who would compose the Orientalist opera "Madama Butterfly" to a libretto based on Belasco's play and Long's short story. The original version of the opera, in two acts, had its premiere 17 February 1904 at La Scala