An excerpt of a watercolor illustration by Giovanni Zuccarelli for the score of Giacomo Puccini’s second opera, Edgar, which will be performed by Minnesota Opera in April.

A rarely heard musical gem is coming to the Twin Cities on April 17 and 19. Minnesota Opera will cap off the spring melt with two concert performances of Giacomo Puccini’s rarely staged opera Edgar, last performed in the United States more than two decades ago.

Edgar is Puccini’s second-ever opera. His first, Le Villi, was written for a music publishing house’s composition contest; while it did not win (being disqualified because parts of the score manuscript were deemed too difficult to read), attention from the competition helped garner a premiere at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan in 1884.

Edgar‘s gestation was much longer (and its manuscript score neater), written by the composer and librettist Ferdinando Fontana over a 5-year period from 1884-1889. premiered at La Scala in 1889, was withdrawn for revisions, and then appeared to greater success at the Teatro del Giglio in Lucca in 1891. Yet more revisions followed, along with additional performances, but the opera’s growing success was soon overshadowed by Puccini’s first bonafide hit: Manon Lescaut (1893). There followed a string of now-familiar operas – La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madama Butterfly (1904) – that made the composer internationally famous and defined his middle period of opera writing.

“Puccini’s work is widely celebrated in our field,” said MN Opera President and General Director Ryan Taylor. “His dramatic and musical legacy are tightly intertwined with this art form, and this concert presentation of one of his first operas promises a glimpse at his own discovery of that artistic voice. Keen ears will pick up on early versions of Puccini’s work that would later transform him into the compositional powerhouse he became.”

This rarely performed opera was last presented in the United States by the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City in 2005 and at Carnegie Hall in 1977. Minnesota Opera’s production will be onstage at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Saint Paul for two performances only—Friday, April 17 and Sunday, April 19. The concert performances will be the first of a two-part celebration of verismo opera to conclude MN Opera’s 2025-2026 season.

Tenor Diego Torre making his company debut singing the title role in Edgar in Concert, which will also serve as a showcase for the MN Opera Resident Artist Program. Alumni Karin Wolverton and Thomas Glass will return to the company to sing the roles of Fidelia and Frank, joined by second-year Resident Artists Kara Morgan and John Mburu as Tigrana and Gualtiero.

Principal Conductor Christopher Franklin will lead the MN Opera Orchestra and Chorus, present onstage throughout the performance. Former Company Artist Margaret Jumonville will be Stage Director, accompanied by Costume Designer Brandi Mans, Lighting Designer Wu Chen Khoo, and Wigs, Hair, and Makeup Designer Emma Gustafson.

MN Opera VP, Artistic, Joseph Li will present Opera Insights in the Ordway’s Target Atrium one hour prior to each performance and highlight moments in the score that both echo and foreshadow Puccini’s musical language and his storytelling craft.

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Twin Cities Arts Reader

The Twin Cities Arts Reader is an arts and lifestyles magazine whose coverage examines arts and selected activities in the state of Minnesota and across the country. It provides in-depth, critical arts coverage and reaches more than 600,000 readers per year.

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