Le Willis: leggenda in un atto in due parti di Ferdinando Fontana by Giacomo Puccini, and: Le Villi: opera-ballo in due atti di Ferdinando Fontana by Giacomo Puccini

Abstract

Reviewed by: Le Willis: leggenda in un atto in due parti di Ferdinando Fontanaby Giacomo Puccini, and: Le Villi: opera-ballo in due atti di Ferdinando Fontanaby Giacomo Puccini Kunio Hara Giacomo Puccini. Le Willis: leggenda in un atto in due parti di Ferdinando Fontana. Edizione critica a cura di = Critical Edition edited by Martin Deasy. (Le opera di Giacomo Puccini, edizione critica = The Operas of Giacomo Puccini, critical edition, vol. I.a.) Milan: Ricordi, 2020. [Pref. by Gabriele Dotto in It. and Eng., p. vii–xiii; historical introd. and acknowledgments in It. and Eng., p. xv–xxx; sigla It. and Eng., p. xxxi; characters, p. xxxii; instruments, p. xxxiii; score, p. 1–236; sources in Eng., p. 237–41; crit. notes in Eng., p. 243–62. ISMN 979-0-041-39546-3; ISBN 978-88-8192-069-3. $262] Giacomo Puccini. Le Villi: opera-ballo in due atti di Ferdinando Fontana. Edizione critica a cura di = Critical Edition edited by Martin Deasy. (Le opera di Giacomo Puccini, edizione critica = The Operas of Giacomo Puccini, critical edition, vol. I.b.) Milan: Ricordi, 2020. [Pref. by Gabriele Dotto in It. and Eng., p. vii–xiii; historical introd. and acknowledgments in It. and Eng., p. xv–xxxiv; sigla It. and Eng., p. xxxv; characters, p. xxxvi; instruments, p. xxxvii; score, p. 1–333; appendices, p. 335–87; sources in Eng., p. 389–96; crit. notes in Eng., p. 397–425. ISMN 979-0-041-41755-4; ISBN 978-88-8192-068-6. $327.50.] In 2013 Casa Ricordi launched its Critical Edition of the Operas of Giacomo Puccini (OGP), under the general editorship of Gabriele Dotto, with the publication of Manon Lescautedited by Roger Parker. As Matthew Franke argues in his review of the edition in this journal, the publication marked the fruition of a long-awaited goal of multiple generations of Puccini scholars ("The First Volume in Ricordi's Puccini Edition," Notes72, no. 1 [2015]: 226–30). It seems fitting that the OGP's first publication would be Manon Lescaut, for even though it was his third opera, it was the work that established Puccini's international reputation as one of the leading composers of Italian opera of his day. Seven years later, in 2020, the publisher issued the first volume of the series in two parts, the critical edition of Puccini's first opera edited by Martin Deasy. The first part (I.a), Le Willis, restores Puccini's opera to its original one-act form as it was premiered in Milan in the spring of 1884; the second part (I.b), Le Villi, captures the final form of the two-act version of the same opera Puccini completed in late 1884 and continued to revise until 1889. The publication of multiple versions of the same operas is an exception for the series, at least according to the list of the entire series included in the "Preface" by Dotto. The only other opera that receives similar treatment is Madama Butterflywhich exists in two-act and three-act versions (I.a, p. xi). Deasy [End Page 599]himself justifies this arrangement by emphasizing the structural and aesthetic differences between the two versions of the opera (I.a, p. xxvii). This points to a particularly thorny issue that has historically bedeviled those attempting to create critical editions of Puccini's operas. Promotional material for the series on Ricordi's website summarizes the problem succinctly in this manner: "Puccini's ceaseless penchant for revision led to a quantity of simultaneously available, sometime overlapping 'versions' of text. As a further complication, 'performing materials' hired out to opera houses were kept updated with corrections that did not always find their way consistently into full and vocal scores offered to the general public" ("Giacomo Puccini—Critical Editions," Ricordi, Universal Music Publishing Group, https://www.ricordi.com/en-US/Critical-Editions/Puccini-Giacomo-Critical-Editions.aspx, [accessed 19 January 2022]). In previous decades, this abundance of materials has both been a source of productive scholarly engagement as well as frustration (see Linda Fairtile, "Giacomo Puccini's Operatic Revisions as Manifestations of His Compositional Priorities" [PhD diss., New York University, 1996]; Philip Gossett, "Some...