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
Paris Opera Ballet Paris Opera Ballet The Paris Opera Ballet (French: "Ballet de l'Opéra national de Paris") is an integral part of the Paris Opera and the oldest national ballet company. Together with the Mariinsky Ballet, Moscow Bolshoi Ballet and the London Royal Ballet it is regarded as one of the four most preeminent ballet companies in the world. Since August 2016 the company has been under the direction of Aurélie Dupont, the "Directrice de la Danse". The ballet company consists of 154 dancers, among them 17 Danseurs Étoiles. The principal dancers give 180 dance performances each year, primarily at the Palais Garnier.