Opera in three acts to a libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, from the theatrical fable of the same name by Carlo Gozzi. Because of the death of Giacomo Puccini (1924), the work was completed by Franco Alfano. First performance: Milan, Teatro alla Scala, 26 April, 1926. Subsequently completed also by Luciano Berio.

It was Renato Simoni, during a meeting with Puccini and Giuseppe Adami in Milan in March 1920, who suggested the subject for his last opera. Puccini was immediately taken, and thus began an adventure that was to occupy the rest of his life, with a succession of enthusiasms, discouragements, accusations of the librettists, subsequent reconciliations and interventions by the composer on dramaturgical, poetic and scenographic aspects as well as costume design. An important stage in its development was marked by the encounter, in August 1920 in Bagni di Lucca, between Puccini and the librettists who presented him with the complete plan of the work (and Puccini surprised them by having them listen to the carillon of the Baron Edoardo Fassini-Camossi, which reproduced Chinese themes that would later be used in the work). He soon began to make sketches. When he interrupted his work in the Spring of 1924, he had by then completed the orchestration of the first two acts, and the third up to the air of Liu, “Tu che di gel sei cinta”. Puccini, when leaving for Brussels, took with him a set of sheets with sketches for the final duet.

Many scholars think that the work should be performed without that final duet finished by others (such as Toscanini did in the premiere) and believe that Puccini could in no way have found a solution for the last scene, in which the protagonist is transformed into a woman in love after the sudden kiss of Calaf.