Opera singers (left to right) Elīna Garanča, Helen Donath and Tamar Iveri perform in Mozart's opera Così fan tutte at the Salzburg Opera Festival. Andreas Schaad/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Giacomo Puccini
Leontyne Price as Leonore in a Metropolitan Opera production of Verdi's La forza del destino, 1977. James Heffernan/Metropolitan Opera Archives hide caption
Jonas Kaufmann's Nessun Dorma: The Puccini Album comes out September 11. Julian Hargreaves/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Joseph Calleja performed a Tiny Desk Concert November 26. Abbey Oldham/Abbey Oldham/NPR hide caption
Opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, circa 1900. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption
Soprano Licia Albanese sang the title role in Puccini's Madama Butterfly 72 times at the Metropolitan Opera. The Metropolitan Opera Archives hide caption
Know your rallentando from your accelerando? Opera singers must follow the composer's musical road signs. iStock hide caption
Vittorio Grigolo and Adrana Damato in 'La Boheme.' Karin Cooper/courtesy of Washington National Opera hide caption
Hear An Audio Introduction To The Opera
Leontyne Price, at the peak of her career, is captured in a live Met broadcast of Puccini's Tosca, from 1962. Courtesy of Sony Classical hide caption
Tosca: Act 3 duet 'O dolci mani' (Leontyne Price, Tosca; Franco Corelli, Cavaradossi)
When Mimi (Krassimira Stoyanova) comes upstairs to borrow a candle from Rodolfo (Stephen Costello), they are immediately attracted to each other. Michael Poehn/Wiener Staatsoper hide caption
A scene from Puccini's "Tosca" Johannes Simon/Getty Images hide caption
Tosca (Catherine Naglestad) with her politically subversive lover, the painter Caravadossi (Roberto Alagna). Photo Grand Angle Orange hide caption
Set Design by Reginald Gray for the Opera La Boheme. Wikimedia Commons hide caption