Ruggero Leoncavallo

An Italian composer who wrote his own librettos, remembered above all for Pagliacci. He studied at the Naples Conservatory, then worked as a pianist in Egypt until the war of 1882 sent him to Paris, where he played in cafés-concerts and gave lessons. Back in Milan he had a hand in the libretto of Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Pagliacci triumphed at the Teatro Dal Verme in 1892. His La bohème of 1897 lost out to Puccini's, but Zazà was an international success. Wilhelm II commissioned Der Roland von Berlin from him, and his last years went mostly to operetta.