Edited by Jeffrey Kallberg (1991)
Two-volume set: score pp. LXIV, 480 + critical commentary
NR 134606
Piano vocal score available
CP 134605
Why a new edition of Luisa Miller? Part of the answer lies in the circumstances of the opera’s genesis, Fittingly, Verdi’s decision to compose Luisa Miller, an opera based on Schiller’s tale of bourgeois conflict and tragedy, Kabale und Liebe (Love and Politics), can be traced back to a scene of human intrigue and drama.
In August 1848, Verdi wrote from Paris to cancel the agreement he had made in 1845 to write an opera for the Teatro San Carlo. The Naples management, however, would have none of it. Unable to put pressure on the distant Verdi, they turned on his Neapolitan librettist, Salvatore Cammarano, threatening him with claims for damages and with imprisonment if he could not pay. Cammarano, a father of six, wrote desperately to Verdi, begging him to reconsider his decision. Gruffly, Verdi consented. Thus spared captivity, Cammarano eventually set to work finding a subject for the opera, finally taking up the Schiller play in April 1849.
Composer and librettist corresponded extensively on this subject through the spring and summer of 1849. These two consummate craftsmen of the theater hashed over innumerable details of dramatic and musical intent. But, more importantly, their correspondence reveals that Verdi composed the majority of the music – some 640 pages in manuscript! – in the space of just six weeks, from mid August to early October. The instrumentation of the opera took place in even less time, in the month between early November (when Verdi arrived in Naples) and 8 December (when the opera received its premiere).
The brief period of time available to complete the score meant that, in many cases, Verdi could ·not concern himself with every detail of the orchestral fabric, but rather only with broad effects. Many facets of the score were left open to interpretation. Hence when copies of Verdi’s manuscript were made by the theater, and when a vocal score was prepared from Verdi’s autograph (activities that Verdi did not supervise), errors and misreadings inevitably began to proliferate. This state of affairs only worsened in editions prepared through the rest of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. All of these editions introduced many outright errors of pitch, rhythm, instrumentation, phrasing, dynamics, and so forth. More commonly still, these later scores distorted the idiosyncrasies in Verdi’s notation, usually by capitulating to a misconceived notion of ‘standard practice’.
The main tasks of the new edition of Luisa Miller have been to provide readings as close as possible to Verdi’s original intentions and, when these intentions are not absolutely clear, to propose coherent interpretations of them (all the while allowing the performer reading the score to perceive – thanks to a system or typographical differentiation – both Verdi’s original text as well as the editorial work done on it). The fulfillment of these tasks required adjustments or reassessments on every page of the opera.
The edition deals also with questions tied to problems of instrumentation, with particular reference to the parts for cimbasso, tympani and bass drum. In contrast to the existing versions, the edition offers suggestions to the modern performer about how to resolve a number of incongruences in the writing for tympani determined by the physical characteristics of the 19th century instruments and their related performance techniques; it gives advice on what modern instrument to employ in place of the now no longer used cimbasso; and finally it discusses the hypothesis of employing or omitting the bass drum from the overture. All the solutions proposed are based both on historically informed studies of performance practice and on direct analysis of the sources.
For the listener, then, the new edition permits the possibility of hearing Luisa Miller as Verdi wrote it, without the additions and alterations of later hands. The experience is akin to viewing a restored painting by an old master: the overall picture remains familiar, but details emerge with far greater clarity and subtlety. Literally every moment of the score holds potential for similar revelations. Thus the need for the new critical edition of the opera is clear: for the first time, it presents the public with a complete and accurate version of Luisa Miller.