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
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