84. Il Trittico

The idea to assemble three one-act operas to be performed in one evening as a trilogy occured to Puccini in September 1904 when he considered setting three of Maxim Gorky’s short stories.Note: *See Carteggi 1958, nos. 394-399 as well as Puccini’s unpublished letters to Illica of 21 October and 17 November 1904 in I-PCc. This idea could also have pertained to Puccini’s later plan to set to music Oscar Wilde’s dramatic fragment A Florentine Tragedy which was hardly long enough for a full-length opera.Note: *See Carteggi 1958, no. 496, of 25 November 1906. Wilde’s piece occupied Puccini repeatedly, at least until the autumn of 1912.Note: *See Seligman 1938, 225, according to the original in MEL of 5 October 1912.
By that time, Puccini probably had already seen Didier Gold’s drama La houppelande in May 1912 at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris,Note: *See Carteggi 1958, no. 619, footnote 2, and Fraccaroli 1957, 202. but it was only in the beginning of 1913 that Puccini mentioned this as a concrete plan.Note: *See Carteggi 1958, no. 619, of 9 February 1913. From the very beginning, it was definite that Il Tabarro (the Italian title of Gold’s play), like the drama, should be in one act, to which one or two others would be appended. Over the course of several years, there were the most diverse ideas and plans for this, but all of them remained unrealized.Note: *For the details, see Schickling 1989, 276 ff.
Right after the completion of Il Tabarro, by the end of November 1916, there were intentions to schedule a performance as soon as possible, without the originally planned addition of the other components of the tryptich.Note: *See e.g. Carteggi 1958, no. 702, of 11 January 1917. Ricordi immediately began copying the score (see Puccini 1981, no. 27, of 5 December 1916). According to MRL, the PN 117000 was assigned to the piano-vocal score on 10 March 1917, immediately after it was certain Puccini would compose all three parts of the Trittico.
It was unclear for some time whether the pieces should be printed separately or in a complete edition;Note: *See Puccini’s unpublished letters to Carlo Clausetti of 16 March, 27 April, and 9 June 1918 (originals in I-Mr, 
Carteggio Puccini-Clausetti). Puccini seems to have tended more towards separate editions.
The generic title Il Trittico was determined and finalized relatively late. Puccini resisted at first when it was proposed by Tito Ricordi on 5 February 1918 (see MRC 1917/18 - 5/463 and 6/235). Then it was used for performances, but not in the printed editions. As a compromise, in the three complete editions of the piano-vocal score of the Trittico, the title page has the three individual titles lacking the words “Il Trittico” (see 84.E.1 etc.). Later, they were only published in separate editions anyway, and the full scores of the individual operas were always only published as separate editions.
Early on, much to Puccini’s displeasure, Ricordi permitted theatres to perform the operas separately. This was even stipulated as a possibility in the contract with the Metropolitan Opera for the first performance (see Schickling 1989, 313). Soon this was not only practised abroad but even at La Scala: in the beginning of 1924, Gianni Schicchi (84ⁱⁱⁱ) was performed there on the same evening with Richard Strauss’ Salome. At times, a different sequence of the operas, i.e. Suor Angelica — Gianni Schicchi — Il Tabarro, was apparently considered by the composer and Ricordi (see Musica d’oggi of February 1922, 57).