Edgar

What's different

The original, in four acts, and the version Puccini spent four years on after Le villi had made his name. It was politely received, and he began revising almost at once: a four-act revision was given at the Teatro del Giglio in Lucca on 5 September 1891, and Ricordi published a vocal score of the four-act text in 1890 with a new ending to the second act. Neither is counted here as a version of its own.

What's different

The cut to three acts, which is the structural change that separates this opera's revisions from the small adjustments Puccini made to Tosca after its premiere. He revised it again for the Teatro Real in Madrid seven weeks later, on 19 March 1892, with Francesco Tamagno as Edgar and Giuseppina Pasqua as Tigrana; the catalogue of the works records no period of composition for that revision and it is counted here as a staging of this version rather than a version of its own.

What's different

The definitive text, reworked sixteen years after the premiere, and the version Puccini finally let stand. Primary here on that ground, and because it is the form in which the opera is now performed and recorded. Giovanni Zenatello sang Edgar, the year after creating Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly. Tigrana becomes a mezzo-soprano part here, having been written for and first sung by sopranos.