Suor Angelica

What's different

The first version, given between Il tabarro and Gianni Schicchi on the same evening. Puccini was still altering the opera while New York rehearsed it. In September 1918 he sent two late changes, one to Angelica's death and one an aria for her, which is Senza mamma, and the first edition of the vocal score was re-engraved across four pages to take them in. This is the text that still contains Amici fiori, the aria in which Angelica names the flowers she is gathering. It was sung here and at the first Italian performance in Rome on 11 January 1919, and it is the passage the revision below removes. Puccini made a few small modifications after Rome as well, which may have been heard first at Florence on 10 May 1919; the catalogue heads that performance a revised version, but nothing recorded of it goes beyond correcting what was already there.

What's different

The finale revised, with extensive cuts, of which the largest took out Amici fiori. Puccini authorised the cut and the aria has not come back: the Centro Studi Giacomo Puccini records it as expunged from that point, and it is published today on its own, as an abandoned piece, rather than as part of the opera. That is why this version is primary here. It is the text audiences hear. Whether Puccini meant the cut to be final is a separate question and is not settled. The passage had been argued over since the Rome performance of January 1919, the decision may have been a compromise forced by circumstances, and the vocal score carrying the shortened aria was printed only after he died. What is certain is which text survived him.