Son of the composer Michele Puccini and fifth composer in his family line, Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy on December 22, 1858. He studied with an uncle, beginning his musical career as organist at age 14.

Verdi's Aida influenced his desire to compose opera, and to this end he entered Milan Conservatory in 1880. Puccini found the greatest success of his career in 1893 with his Manon Lescaut. His librettists were Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, who provided the libretti for three more Puccini operas: La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). Puccini considered the latter his masterpiece (an opinion which, despite an Unprepossessing premiere, the world soon came to agree). All three operas firmly hold the stage to this day.

Though one critic's particular summing up of Tosca as a "shabby little shocker" was sometimes extended to Puccini's work in general, nobody can deny his genius for direct emotional appeal. Even in his chillingly gorgeous quasi-fairytale opera, Turandot, left unfinished at the composer's death, Puccini gives us one of his most touching soprano creations. The servant Liu's devoted love gives her a grandeur far above the icy princess of the opera's name.

Puccini died of complications from throat cancer on November 29, 1924. That Italy had already claimed him as Verdi's successor was proved by the country's plunge into deep mourning on hearing of the composer's death. His villa at Torre del Lago was opened as a museum to his memory in 1930.