Il tabarro
opera · opera in un atto
Composer Giacomo Puccini
Librettist Giuseppe Adami
Synopsis
Michele owns a barge on the Seine and is twenty-five years older than his wife. Giorgetta has grown distant from him, and is meeting one of his stevedores at night, when a lighted match tells the man that her husband is asleep.
Versions
Key facts
- Premiere
- 14 December 1918, Metropolitan Opera House (39th Street), New York
- Acts
- 1
- Language
- Italian (it)
- Setting
- A barge moored on the Seine at Paris, in 1910.
What's different
The original version, given with Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi on the same evening. Puccini neither supervised nor attended it, the only premiere of his career he missed, and he took the more trouble over the first Italian performance at the Teatro Costanzi three weeks later. The rehearsals in Rome produced changes of their own, which reached the second edition of the vocal score and the first printed full score, and the Florence performance of 10 May 1919 is where the catalogue puts the revised text. Those were corrections and cuts to what was there, Michele's monologue among them, rather than new material.
Dramatis personae
| Role | Voice | Created by |
|---|---|---|
| Michele The owner of the barge, fifty years old. | baritone | Luigi Montesanto |
| Luigi A stevedore, twenty years old. | tenor | Giulio Crimi |
| Il Tinca A stevedore, thirty-five years old. | tenor | Angelo Badà |
| Il Talpa A stevedore, fifty-five years old. | bass | Adam Didur |
| Giorgetta Michele's wife, twenty-five years old. | soprano | Claudia Muzio |
| La Frugola Talpa's wife, fifty years old. | mezzo-soprano | Alice Gentle |
| Un venditore di canzonette A seller of song sheets. | tenor | Pietro Audisio |
| Due amanti Two lovers. | soprano, tenor | Marie Tiffany, Albert Reiss |
Key facts
- Premiere
- 28 January 1922, Teatro Costanzi, Rome
- Acts
- 1
- Language
- Italian (it)
- Setting
- A barge moored on the Seine at Paris, in 1910.
What's different
After hearing the work in Bologna, Puccini decided that Michele's monologue was wrong and asked Adami for a fresh text. He set it as Nulla! Silenzio!, in place of the Scorri, fiume eterno of the original, and wrote the new pages on the same paper he was using for Turandot. It is this text that is sung today, which is why it is primary here: the Centro Studi Giacomo Puccini calls the 1922 monologue the present one and the other the original. The new monologue was ready by the beginning of December 1921 and was almost certainly first heard in Rome on 28 January 1922, with the Milan performance of the following evening, at which Puccini attended rehearsals, a day behind it.
Dramatis personae
| Role | Voice | Created by |
|---|---|---|
| Michele The owner of the barge, fifty years old. | baritone | José Segura Tallien |
| Luigi A stevedore, twenty years old. | tenor | Antonio Cortis |
| Il Tinca A stevedore, thirty-five years old. | tenor | Luigi Nardi |
| Il Talpa A stevedore, fifty-five years old. | bass | Michele Fiore |
| Giorgetta Michele's wife, twenty-five years old. | soprano | Mercedes Llopart |
| La Frugola Talpa's wife, fifty years old. | mezzo-soprano | Renata Pezzati |
| Un venditore di canzonette A seller of song sheets. | tenor | — |
| Due amanti Two lovers. | soprano, tenor | — |
Source
- La houppelande by Didier Gold (1910)
Written from
- Osborne, C. (1981) The complete operas of Puccini: a critical guide. London: Gollancz, pp. 215-240.
- Schickling, D. (2003) 'Il tabarro', in Giacomo Puccini: catalogue of the works, no. 84i. Kassel: Bärenreiter. Online edition, Centro Studi Giacomo Puccini. (Accessed: 5 September 2026).
- Centro Studi Giacomo Puccini (n.d.) Il tabarro. (Accessed: 5 September 2026).
- Centro Studi Giacomo Puccini (n.d.) Il trittico. (Accessed: 5 September 2026).
- Wikipedia (2026) Il tabarro. (Accessed: 5 September 2026). The English article.
- Wikipedia (2026) Il tabarro. (Accessed: 5 September 2026). The Italian article.
- Scriptorium: musica e parole (n.d.) 'Almanacco dicembre', L'almanacco dell'opera. (Accessed: 5 September 2026). The only source found that names both of the two lovers at the 1918 premiere.