Edgar
Music by Giacomo Puccini · libretto by Ferdinando Fontana · premiered 1889 · at La Scala
Edgar is an operatic dramma lirico in three acts (originally four) by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, freely based on the play in verse La Coupe et les lèvres by Alfred de Musset. The first performance was given at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 21 April 1889 but the opera was not a success. Puccini repeatedly revised it until a 1905 performance in Buenos Aires, before declaring the work irredeemable, describing it as "warmed-up soup". It is still occasionally performed, including a 2005 recording by the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia conducted by Alberto Veronesi and featuring Plácido Domingo. This recording was described by Gramophone as "a tasty meal".
Text from the Wikipedia article "Edgar (opera)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (22 December 1858 – 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-nineteenth-century Romantic Italian opera, it later developed in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. His most renowned works are La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and the unfinished Turandot (1926, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano), all of which are…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Giacomo Puccini", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Giacomo Puccini
- Le Villi (1884)
- La bohème (1893)
- La fanciulla del West (1905)
- Gianni Schicchi (1917)
- La rondine (1917)
- Il tabarro (1918)
- Il trittico (1918)