 During the period of 1846–1877, operas of Verdi, performed mostly by Italian companies, reached a wide audience.One of the earliest Turkish operettas was "Leblebici Horhor" (Horhor the chickpea seller), by the Armenian composer Dikran Çuhacıyan who is also remembered as the composer of what may have been the first original opera in Turkish, "Arif'in Hilesi" (Arif's Deception) 1874.As with other arts, the development of Turkish opera and ballet was brought to a halt from the 1880s by almost constant warfare, peaking in the Balkan Wars and World War I which resulted in the collapse of the empire.