Gianni Schicchi

is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's (The Triptych)three one-act operas with contrasting themes, originally written to be presented together. Although it continues to be performed with one or both of the other operas, is now more frequently staged either alone or with short operas by other composers. The aria is one of Puccini's best known, and one of the most popular arias in opera. Puccini had long considered writing a set of one-act operas which would be performed together in a single evening, but faced with a lack of suitable subjects and opposition from his publisher, he repeatedly put the project aside. However, by 1916 Puccini had completed the one-act tragedy and, after considering various ideas, he began work the following year on the solemn, religious, all-female opera . , a comedy, completes the triptych with a further contrast of mood. The score combines elements of Puccini's modern style of harmonic dissonance with lyrical passages reminiscent of Rossini, and it has been praised for its inventiveness and imagination. When premiered at New York's Metropolitan Opera in December 1918, became an immediate hit, while the other two operas were received with less enthusiasm. This pattern was broadly repeated at the Rome and London premieres and led to commercial pressures to abandon the less successful elements. Although on artistic grounds Puccini opposed performing the three operas except as the original triptych, by 1920 he had given his reluctant consent to separate performances. has subsequently become the most-performed part of and has been widely recorded. Historical background Gianni Schicchi de' Cavalcanti was a 13th-century Italian knight, a Florentine historical figure mentioned by Dante in the Inferno, Canto XXX. In that canto, Dante visits the Circle of Impersonators and sees a man savagely attacking another: he is told that the attacker is Schicchi, condemned to Hell for impersonating Buoso Donati and making his will highly favorable to Schicchi.