Written towards the end of the composer’s life, Gianni Schicchi, a masterpiece of Italian comic opera, is the third of three one-act operas known collectively as Il trittico. Following on from the chillingly sinister Il tabarro and the sentimental tragedy Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi examines human greed with a light and, at times, macabre comic touch. Set in thirteenth-century Florence, the plot centres on the conspiratorial efforts of the relatives of the recently deceased Buoso Donati to create a will by bringing in Gianni Schicchi to impersonate the deceased Donati in his final hours, only for the cunning Schicchi to cheat the family by dictating a will that leaves the greater part of the estate to himself, thus leaving the family powerless to intervene without revealing their own treachery. Although best known today for O mio babbino caro (Oh, my beloved father), a trademark Puccinian aria now immortalised in the film A Room with a View, Gianni Schicchi is notable for its dependence on ensemble singing rather than on gorgeous melodies. Atypically of the composer, the dramatic sequence of comic incidents is propelled by quicksilver, sometimes brittle, music with sharp, incisive rhythms and pungent orchestration.