Le Villi

Le Villi
Opera-ballet by Giacomo Puccini
Original 1884 advertisement in Gazzetta Musicale di Milano
Librettist	Ferdinando Fontana
Language	Italian
Based on	Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr's short story Les Willis
Premiere	31 May 1884 (1884-05-31) Teatro Dal Verme, Milan

Le Villi (The Willis or The Fairies) is an opera-ballet in two acts (originally one) composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, based on the short story Les Willis by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. Karr's story was in turn based in the Central European legend of the vila, also used in the ballet Giselle. The opera, in its original one-act version, was first performed at the Teatro Dal Verme, Milan, on 31 May 1884.

Le Villi is Puccini's first stage work. It was written for an 1883 competition of one-act operas by the publisher Sonzogno in his periodical Il teatro illustrato, but did not even earn an honourable mention. According to Mosco Carner, this may have been because it was written in such haste that the score was all but illegible. His supporters, who included Arrigo Boito, funded the first production, whose favorable reception led to publication by Giulio Ricordi. Puccini's mother received the following telegram on the night of premiere at the Teatro dal Verme on 31 May 1884: "Theatre packed, immense success; anticipations exceeded; eighteen calls; finale of first act encored thrice"'. Ricordi urged the composer to expand the work, and Puccini did, producing a new version later that year, which was followed by modifications in 1888, and the final version in 1892. A performance typically lasts 64 minutes.

In the libretto, each part of the symphonic intermezzo between Acts 1 and 2 – L'Abbandono (The Desertion) and La tregenda (The Spectre) – is preceded by explanatory verses recounting the intervening events. Michele Girardi, citing a letter from Fontana to Puccini on 3 September 1884, has pointed out that the librettist intended for these to be read by the audience but not actually recited by a narrator. But according to Mosco Carner, Puccini had intended for the verses to be read out to the audience, although he notes there is no mention of this having actually happened in contemporary reviews of the first production. Likewise, there is no record of a narrator having been used at the first performance of Le Villi at the Metropolitan Opera in 1908. Nevertheless, a narrator is used in some modern productions of the opera, such as the September 2004 production at the Teatro Dal Verme with Leo Nucci as the narrator, and the August 1994 production at the Festival della Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca with Massimo Foschi as narrator. A narrator (Tito Gobbi) is also used in the Sony 1981 studio recording of the work.