After the great success of Jules Massenet’s opera of the same name, Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) also set the well-known material of Abbé Prévost to music in 1892: compared to the French-language version, he wanted to write the opera in the Italian manner, full of passion and with great despair. That he succeeded in this was attested to by an enthusiastic audience that attended the premiere at the Teatro Regio in Turin. Even today, critics attest Puccini’s masterpiece an enormous power of suggestion. With "Manon Lescaut" Puccini had also cemented his international reputation as a recognized composer. For the dramatic death scene in the finale, he created a somber and harrowing emotional world that he was never to achieve again on such a high scale. In addition, "Manon Lescaut" is characterized by an abundance of new melodies and motifs that have eternal value in their ingenuity and musical beauty. The six extremely varied solo pieces for Des Grieux alone are among the most demanding tenor parts Puccini ever wrote. The characteristically immature figure of Manon contrasts with his later title heroines in that she lacks inner stability and is guided not only by love but also by base motives such as greed, avarice and ostentation.

When Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels in November 1924 as a result of cancer, his composition of "Turandot" was still unfinished. The composer Franco Alfano (1876-1954) was then commissioned to complete the opera. At the premiere at the Teatro alla Scala, the work was performed as a homage to Puccini only up to Liù’s death aria. The conductor Arturo Toscanini addressed the audience at this point: "Here the opera ends, because this is where the master died".
"Turandot" can be regarded as the culmination of Puccini’s creative output, since it perfectly combines all four elements that characterize his incomparable style: The slave Liù symbolizes the lyrical-sentimental element, the pair Turandot/Kalaf the heroic, while the three courtiers stand for the comic-grotesque. The exotic element is achieved by using authentic Chinese sages and pentatonic motifs.
Compared to his other works, "Turandot" has greater echoes of contemporary musical trends, as well as dissonances, polytonal effects and, for the traditionally trained listener, irritating effects in singing and orchestration, making it - compared to his earlier operas - long less popular with the audience. In the meantime, however, Puccini’s last work has established itself on the opera stages. In it, his life’s work is bundled and gives room for speculation as to what the composer’s further musical development might have been like.