Every artist is such to the extent that he observes, studies and therefore produces works of ingenuity that convey something more than what has already been seen, heard, touched. 

Artist is therefore the one who makes the past a fertile humus from which to draw new ideas  focusing them or not in a well-characterized form, but there is more, there are also those who, as in the case of Maestro Puccini, demonstrate a desire to overturn the schemes, to want to create forms whose content is innovative, totally resetting the material delivered by history so as to make it appear totally new. The last of the great opera composers was in his art what he was in life, i.e. eager for strict rules that he could break or circumvent without causing scandal, in everyday life  a freethinker obsequious to the rigid ethical and social rules of the monarchy, living at times in fear of having strayed from his origins, so much so that he wrote to his friend Arnaldo Fraccaroli: <<… in the midst of all this scenario from a thousand and one nights you see it the little organist of Lucca?>>
If we then observe this behavior in the historical dimension of the second half of the 19th century, we realize that the industrial upheaval, therefore consequently ethical and social, made the composers of the end of the 19th century restless, destabilized researchers who strongly felt the need to owe the world something totally new. Life moved largely to the cities, the bourgeoisie now strongly present, the new amazing inventions that tacitly accustomed man not to be surprised too much, imposed new ways of thinking that could no longer find concrete answers in the hackneyed schemes of the past. The composer no longer wrote in one go but meditated, demanded retreats, expressed himself and his time without submitting to external demands. This is how Puccini suffered, the inexorable detachment from his youth, getting intoxicated with bold groups and hostile jokes to the unfortunate and then withdrawing into the silence of his rooms to meditate on the world and its mutability. Today, as in the past, society and customs were changing, so if even after 1850 a serious opera consisted of about three or four main roles in which each would have had a solo, then moving on to duets and comparisons in the so-called "final concertato", and focus would have been opened on all or most of the soloists thanks to scenic and choral backgrounds, at the end of the 19th century the connotations of Italian opera were changed, changing its conception, feeling not only the need to modify schemes rather than making the thematic uniqueness of each individual work. In this Giacomo Puccini, in his continuous research (in which he will never feel totally satisfied) will experience a "different" art throughout his life, aspiring to that stroke of genius that could make him different and unique, but it will be precisely this continuous navigation on unknown waters that will not spare him strong disappointments, insecurities and therefore great difficulties in completing works already begun. Dukes and maidens (abandoned) in his narration will disappear to give voice to a shocking realism, full of a transport of great tension. The concept of the original therefore represented the cardinal objective, also bordering on a great limit to quantity in favor of quality. Several times the Maestro had to stop in the composition of his works, as if to lose faith in what he was doing, demanding from himself an in-depth study of the single psychological subject, a research which, when completed, had to then be transposed into music to best express atmospheres, moods or simply to accompany the bel canto. If Puccini's works manage to speak even today  attracting the public to themselves, it is precisely for the refinement and synergy between the aspects mentioned, both on the musical side and on the psychological, social and sociological side. The Italian technique of reminiscence, with a theme reiterated throughout the opera, and the Wagnerian technique of the leitmotif, where timbral effects and elements are linked to a character and are reaffirmed in his presence, are not so innovative elements, it is true, but the refinement of the settings and the use of a unifying effect connecting the scenes made Puccini's opera an example of masterful skill. To remedy the loss of inspiration, due to certain reflections from which  there was no way out, the Lucchese too, like so many other musicians, acted like a tailor with his own fabrics, sewing them  to close the patches, so it does not appear strange to the dear reader if for the last act of Tosca, Puccini made use of scraps discarded from his operas Edgar and Madame Butterfly, on the other hand Tosca and Cavaradossi debuting their great feeling with the long love duet they had already said a lot, so with the use of material 
adapted managed once again to amaze by making an innovative if linear scenic continuity. From his suffering in finding new ways of expression, in the drama that saw the oxymoron of his life from "little organist" to  collector of various foreign and Italian honors, the Senator (appointed as such "for clear fame" 2 months before his death on November 29, 1924 in Brussels, Belgium) shaped  his thought and transduced it into an art that became an ambassador in the world of Italian artistic flair .