Edgar is an operatic dramma lirico in three acts (originally four acts)^[1] 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.^[2]

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".^[3] 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".^[3]

Edgar, Puccini's second opera, was composed on a commission from the publisher Ricordi after the successful reception of his first stage work, Le Villi. The plot indicates the influence of Wagner's Tannhäuser. Both centre on medieval knights struggling between a life of sensual indulgence and ideal love. Edgar is "torn between the sacred love of Fidelia and the profane love of Tigrana";^[4] Wagner's hero indulges himself with Venus while pining for the love of Elizabeth. The gypsy-like figure of Tigrana (supposedly the child of "wandering Moors") also parallels the anti-heroine of Bizet's Carmen.

The original version had four acts and was tepidly received. In January 1890, Ricordi published a revised version, including a different ending for act 2. In the autumn of 1891, Puccini revised the work again, cutting the last act and producing a three-act version which would again be revised in 1905.

In this final form the opera had even less success than in its original four-act structure. Some of the music that was cut in 1891 was reused in Tosca and became the beautiful act 3 duet, "Amaro sol per te m'era il morire!". The funeral march from act 3 was played at Puccini's funeral, conducted by Arturo Toscanini and the aria "Addio, mio dolce amor" ("Farewell, My Sweet Love") from the same act was sung.

Puccini finally gave up on Edgar and in later years, bitterly repudiated the work. He wrote

It was an organism defective from the dramatic point of view. Its success was ephemeral. Although I knew that I wrote some pages which do me credit, that is not enough—as an opera it does not exist. The basis of an opera is the subject and its treatment. In setting the libretto of Edgar I have, with all respect to the memory of my friend Fontana, made a blunder (una cantonata). It was more my fault than his.^[5]

On a copy of the score that he sent to a friend, the English woman Sybil Seligman, he wrote scathing remarks against parts of the score and amended the title to read:

E Dio ti GuARdi da quest'opera! (And may God protect you from this opera!)^[6][7]

The autograph of the acts 1 and 3 of the original version is preserved in the Archivio Ricordi in Milan. The autograph of the acts 2 and 4, which was believed lost till 2008, was owned until her death by Simonetta Puccini, the composer's granddaughter.

The first version was performed at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 25 June 2008, directed by Yoram David. American musicologist Dr. Linda Fairtile^[8] is working on producing the critical edition of the first version, but the score performed in Turin is based on Puccini's autograph. Fairtile worked on it together with Gabriele Dotto and Claudio Toscani.

In the opera's 1905 version, it was first given in the US on 12 April 1966 and in the UK on 6 April 1967 (by Hammersmith Municipal Opera under Joseph Vandernoot).^[9] However, the original version was given its UK premiere at Lewes Town Hall by New Sussex Opera on 25 October 2012.

The Berliner Operngruppe under Felix Krieger presented Edgar at Konzerthaus Berlin in February 2019.

Place: Flanders.

Time: 1302.