Crit. Ed. Roger Parker. Par PUCCINI GIACOMO. The Critical Edition of MANON LESCAUT is the first volume of the series THE OPERAS OF GIACOMO PUCCINI - CRITICAL EDITION - in collaboration with Archivio storico Ricordi and Fondazione Simonetta Puccini. It makes available the three main versions of the opera that have survived in various sources: an 1893 version, with the original Act I finale, the first version of Manons Act IV aria, and the uncut version of the final duet in Act IV; a 'midcareer'version imagined by Puccini in the first decade of the new century, when he sanctioned the almost complete omission of Manons Act IV aria; and finally the last version that Puccini lived to approve, with Manons aria restored, albeit with a revisedliterary text. The edition consists of two volumes of full score. The first volume is introduced by a preface to the Puccini Critical Edition and an historical introduction; the second volume ends with a detailed description of the operas many sources and alengthy critical commentary which discusses numerous problematic details in the musical text. / Opéra-opérette / Date parution : 1905-07-06/ Répertoire / Opéra

Full Score. Par PUCCINI GIACOMO. The premiere of La Bohème took place at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 1 February 1896. Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica based their libretto for this opera on Scènes de la vie de Bohème by Henry Murger. It took Puccini only a fewmonths to complete a score brimming with wonderful melodic invention and orchestrational genius. The music is a surprisingly supple and sensitive medium for depicting a variety of emotions that animate the young: reckless living full of stop-gapexpedients, erratic feelings and sudden explosions of noble sentiment, the driving ambitions of one’s art. Puccini’s musical imagery illuminates the different moments and moods of the story with a delicate yet intense lyrical quality; just as therapid decline and death of Mimì, subtle yet invincible, remind us of the universal reality that all things must inevitably come to an end. On the cover: “Al Quartiere Latino”, sketch by Riccardo Salvadori, as a variation on the sketch by Adolf Hohenstein for the world premiere in Turin of Bohème, 1896 © Archivio Storico Ricordi/ Répertoire / Oeuvres Théâtrales/Oratorios et Ballets