Puccini

Puccini's operas — La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot — are performed more frequently worldwide than those of any other composer. His gift was for creating moments of overwhelming emotional intensity: Mimi's death in La Bohème, the torture scene in Tosca, and Butterfly's final act are among the most wrenching scenes in all theatre. Puccini combined Italian melodic tradition with a modern sense of harmony and orchestration influenced by Debussy and Strauss. He was a masterful dramatist who knew exactly how to manipulate audience emotion — his timing of climactic moments is unerring. Turandot, left unfinished at his death, contains the aria Nessun dorma, which became a global phenomenon when Pavarotti performed it at the 1990 World Cup.