The most important composer of Italian opera after Verdi, he wrote in the "verisimo" style which used characters from everyday life for opera. Some of his works, "La Boheme", "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly" are among the most performed operas today.
Coming from a family of musicians, he took organ lessons and by the age of 14 he was a freelance organist. He then entered the Milan Conservatory.
His personal life was full of torments: He had an illicit relationship with the wife of a grocer, who gave birth to his child and whom he married following her husband's death. Later on, Puccini's wife, suspecting her husband of having an affair with a young servant, drove that woman to suicide, creating a scandal.
A proud and elegant man on the outside, Puccini was lonely and full of doubts. "I need a friend so much, and I don’t have one [...] Only I understand myself, and this gives me grief", wrote Puccini in 1903.
Puccini spent the last 5 years of his life working on "Turandot", his most ambitious opera. But as he suffered from throat cancer, he underwent an operation in Brussels and died of a heart attack before he finished his last creation.
