THE GREAT ITALIAN COMPOSER G. PUCCINI DIED IN BRUSSELS

The famous author of Tosca and Madame Butterfly has succumbed to the consequences of a recent operation.
By agreement between the Belgian authorities and the Italian colony, an imposing funeral will be held in Brussels for the master whose popularity was great in Italy.

BRUSSELS, November 29. The Italian composer Puccini died this morning at 11:30 a.m. During the night, the patient's condition had worsened following a weakening of the heart and, this morning, the doctors had no more hope.
The composer's children, the Italian ambassador and the apostolic nuncio, called urgently, spent part of the night at the patient's bedside. This morning, the nuncio administered the sacraments to the master Puccini.
The body will be exposed in a room of the clinic on the Avenue de la Couronne, where the composer was undergoing treatment. The Italian colony is preparing, in agreement with the Belgian authorities, to give him an imposing funeral which will be scheduled later.

Emotion in Rome

ROME, November 29." The news of the death of the composer Puccini in Brussels has caused the deepest emotion in all circles. The dispatch announcing his death was communicated immediately to the King and the Pope, as well as to Mr. Mussolini, who expressed their deep regret. The President of the Senate, of which Puccini had been a member for a short time, has decided that a delegation of senators will go to Brussels to participate in the funeral. National events will be held in honor of the great composer, who was very popular among all classes of the Italian people.

It was last Wednesday that Puccini entered the Ledoux Clinic in Brussels and received the first application of radium. His mouth had to be temporarily closed with a surgical bandage and a drain inserted into his larynx to enable him to breathe. It was hoped that after a week he would be able to leave the clinic.

His death is a very sensitive loss to musical art. Giacomo Puccini, who was originally from Lucca, Italy, and descended from an old family of musicians, was sixty-six years old. A pupil at the Milan Conservatory, where his first opera, "Le Vili", performed in Milan in 1884, had been crowned, he had won, in 1893, a great success with Manon Lescaut.

After a long journey throughout Italy, he had given, in 1896, La Vie de bohème which was also well received, not only in his own country, but in France, where it was performed, in 1900, at the Opéra-Comique. One of his best-known works is Tosca, performed first at the Opéra-Comique in 1903, then at the Sarah-Bernhardt theater, and whose libretto was taken from the drama by Victorien Sardou. A little later, he had performed Madame Butterfly.
In 1912, he had performed in America and Monte Carlo, La Fille du Far-West. On November 6, 1922, the Opéra-Comique gave the first performance of a one-act opéra bouffe: Gianni Schichi, which was to be the first part of a musical triptych.

He left an unpublished work: La Princesse Turanda.