Gianni Schicchi

When 60-year-old Puccini decided to compose his first comedy, he chose as his subject a Florentine con-man famed for his powers of mimicry. Everyone knew about him and his wicked ways. Dante depicted him in the Divine Comedy doing terrible things.
But Puccini saw the funny side.
The head of the wealthy Donati family dies and leaves his immense fortune to a monastery. Against their snobbish instincts, the distraught family call upon an outsider Gianni Schicchi to “fix” the problem.