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Puccini

Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) came from a family that had provided organists and composers to the Cathedral of Lucca for five generations, a heritage he set aside entirely to write opera. His twelve completed operas, among them La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly, have never left the international repertoire. He died in Brussels in November 1924, undergoing radiation treatment for throat cancer, before completing Turandot. At its posthumous premiere at La Scala in 1926, Arturo Toscanini stopped the performance at the exact point where Puccini's manuscript ended, turned to the audience, and said: "Here the opera ends, because at this point the master died."

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