Sources
69. Tosca

69.A.2

Incomplete draft of the libretto of Act 1 in a copyist’s hand, consisting of 16 unnumbered leaves, 4°, written only on one side each, with several autograph composition sketches and indications for the composition.

Described in Burton 1995, p. 465, where it is asserted that this draft stems from 1898.
The manuscript contains the following composition sketches:
1) 6 bars for the duet of Tosca and Cavaradossi between fig. 35 and fig. 37, with the autograph indication: “Canto (occhi) in mi b (2^a parte) [Voice (the passage about the eyes) in E-flat (2^nd part)].”
2) 4 bars for fig. 36+1/4.
3) 4 bars for fig. 72-5/2.
This manuscript is mentioned in the official Inventario degli oggetti e dei cimeli pucciniani conservati nella Villa Puccini di Torre del Lago of May 1952 (in No. 71). However, it is absent from the Inventario Archivio Puccini in Torre del Lago of 1980; nevertheless, the manuscript still exists there.

69.A.3

Sketch of 3 bars in a letter by Puccini to Tito Ricordi of 23 November 1897 (see 69.D.2).

This theme, which Puccini designated in this letter as the “leitmotif della trombata finale per i colleghi e uniti [leitmotif of the final trumpet piece for the colleagues and their allies]”,Note: *The precise meaning of this phrase is unclear, although "trombata" is a vulgar Italian term denoting sexual intercourse. appears at numerous junctures in the opera (see Burton 1995, pp. 120 and 164, Motive 6).

69.A.I.1.a

Missing (see 69.D.3).

Composition draft for the first 3 bars of the opera written on a single leaf with the autograph heading: “La Tosca Preludio” and signed at the end: “Giacomo Puccini”. Indications for the instruments trumpets and trombones appear in the second bar. This could be the draft for this music, which Puccini orchestrated in January 1898, but one must not rule out the possibility that it might be a later fair copy for an unknown dedicatee.

69.A.I.1.b

Missing (see 69.D.4). Last at Christie's auction of 21 November 2012, lot 46. 

13 bars from the beginning of Act 1 written on a postcard with Puccini’s portrait.
Autograph heading: “La Tosca”, signed at the bottom by Puccini and dated “15 ott[obre]: ’96 Torre del Lago”, with the following inscription in the left margin: “al mio carissimo Giulio Ricordi queste prime note Toscane (ah fossero l’ultime!) [to my very dear Giulio Ricordi, these first notes of ToscaNote: *Since Puccini was writing from Tuscany, “Toscane” was a double entendre, intended as a pun on the Italian word for Tuscan. (ah, would that they were the final ones!)] ...”

69.A.I.17.a

1 leaf, 4° with 12 staves.
The recto bears the autograph heading “Tosca” and a sketch of 16 bars (with some indication of the instruments) for the introduction to Cavaradossi’s Act 1 aria, “Recondita armonia” (from fig. 17). The end of the page bears an autograph signature, probably signifying that Puccini presented the leaf as a gift to an unknown recipient. D-B acquired the manuscript in 1937.
The verso consists of 4 bars with the indication “Tempo di Valzer”, probably originally intended for the beginning of “Recondita armonia.”

The sketch differs from the definitive version in many ways. It certainly originated from an early phase of the composition, around the beginning of 1898.

69.A.I.37.a

1 leaf, 8°, printed with Puccini’s Milan address, “Via Solferino 27”, comprising 8 bars of music written on single staves, marked “Andante mosso” (E major, 6/8). The manuscript bears the autograph heading: “La Tosca Milano / 11.3.98” and Puccini’s signature with his full name at the end of the music. The verso bears a note referring to the provenance: “Collezione Casati."

This is the main theme of the Act 1 duet of Tosca and Cavaradossi (from fig. 37+3), the melody and meter of which were later changed.
The leaf is obviously not a sketch but a page dedicated to an unknown recipient. According to the autograph date, it originated from a rather early phase of the composition, before Puccini began notating the full score. It is very surprising that Puccini decided to dispose of this manuscript in this way long before he finished the opera.

69.A.I.75.a

Unknown (formerly owned by Cecilia Massa, Armstrong, Argentina). Last at Christie's auction of 1 December 2004, sale 6962, lot 22.

The manuscript bears the autograph heading “Tosca” and, in the lower right margin, the indication: “Finito l’atto I° / a di 4 9mbre [4 November] / 1898 / GPuccini.” It contains several corrections with indications of some instruments. Since Puccini only used one side for the notation, the leaf appears to have been written to replace the corresponding passage in the original composition draft. The date might actually signify the day he completed the orchestration.
According to Mrs. Massa, the manuscript devolved from her grandfather’s estate (see 67.A.IV.1.a).

69.A.I.87.a

Missing (see 69.D.5)

This page is only known from a facsimile. Although the music is totally different, this could be early sketches for the finale of Act 1.

69.A.III.4.a

4 pages, 4° with 12 staves, 58 bars.

Composition draft for Act 3, fig. 4 – fig. 7+7. This is the passage of the bells, with the first entrance of the theme of Cavaradossi’s aria, “E lucevan le stelle.” Therefore, the draft probably originated from the last phase of composition in the autumn of 1899 (see 69.D.6, 69.D.7, and NOTES). Parts of it, particularly the rhythm of the bells, are substantially different from the definitive version.
This manuscript is also described in Zeileis 1992, p. 132, and in Catalogue No. 203, 1976, of the music antiquarian Schneider, Tutzing, p. 56, No. 73.

69.A.III.12.a

Missing (see 69.D.8).

Perhaps the very neat notation means that before making the appropriate changes in the composition draft (see 69.A.III.12.b), Puccini decided to again revise the voice part. It is also possible that this manuscript is a later fair copy for an unknown dedicatee.

69.A.III.12.b

Missing (see 69.D.9)

Composition draft (?) for Act 3, fig. 12+2/6.

This beginning of Cavaradossi’s “Oh dolci baci” appears to have been later inserted in the continuous composition draft (probably in 1899). It bears the autograph heading: “La Tosca / atto 3°”; at the end, Puccini wrote: “etc”.
However, this may be a later dedicatory leaf. (Only a portion of the manuscript is visible in 69.D.9; see also 69.A.III.12.a.)

69.D.10

69.D.2

69.D.3

Also included in Burton 1995, p. 114. 

69.D.4

69.D.5

69.D.6

69.D.7

69.D.8

69.D.9

Also included in Gauthier 1961, p. 178.

69.E.2

Second Italian edition:
Copyright 1899.
Ricordi, Milan etc., 1900.
PN 103050, 310 pages, 4°.

According to the earliest blind stamp, this edition was published shortly after the world première and therefore probably substantially represents the version as it was performed for the first time. This is supported by the fact that there was some talk “delle piccole varianti e dei tagli fatti [of minor variations and cuts that were made]” immediately after the first performance (see Tito Ricordi’s unpublished letter to Puccini of 26 January 1900 in MRC). Some of the changes may also have been made by Puccini after the first performance with a view toward the forthcoming productions of Tosca in Turin (20 February) and Milan (17 March). MRK records 30 March 1900 as the printing date.
The edition contains numerous changes compared to 69.E.1; they particularly concern expression marks (dynamics, metronome indications, tempo, etc.) and smaller changes in the voice parts and the text (the latter, obviously due to differences of opinion between the composer, librettists, and Ricordi, can be also discerned in different versions of the published libretto). Furthermore, there are the following more important variants:

Act 1:

Act 2: 

Act 3: 

Ricordi still sold this edition for a long time after World War II, silently making some minor changes therein during Puccini’s lifetime and for several years thereafter.

69.E.2a

Partitura [engraved conductor’s score, lacking the title page].
Copyright 1899.
Ricordi, Milan, 1900.
PN 103378, 300 pages, 2°.

According to MRL, production began on 14 February 1900; the full score might have been finished in the first months of that year. It corresponds to 69.E.2 to a large extent, but not entirely: Tosca’s additions in Act 2 are missing. The discrepancies are probably publisher’s errors and not deliberate changes made by Puccini.
Furthermore, in the second act, there is an optional cut of 4 bars for orchestra (fig. 24+2/5), revoked, however, in early copies of 69.E.2g, and only adopted much later in the posthumous full and piano-vocal scores. This optional cut (definitive only in 69.E.3) does not seem to have been finally authorized by Puccini. The information pertaining to this in Parker 1995, pp. XXIII and XXXVIII is not correct.

69.E.2b *

Fairtile 1996, p. 442, footnote 3, describes a copy of a Tosca piano-vocal score in GB-Lcm with “Puccini’s signed inscription to Alfred Piccaver,” in which an “unidentified annotation” states: “pencil notations in the tenor part of this score were made by the composer in Vienna, about 1916/20.” This and all of Fairtile’s other information pertaining to that score are inaccurate. It is true that this was Alfred Piccaver’s working copy and he sang Cavaradossi in Vienna from 1920, but Piccaver’s score neither contains a dedication by Puccini nor any autograph “pencil notations”. It is not even a copy of 69.E.2 (Italian edition) with a blind stamp of 2.10. It is actually a copy of 69.E.2b (German edition), with the blind stamp of 10.07. A librarian’s note of 19 May 1978, made when GB-Lcm received the gift of piano-vocal scores from Piccaver’s estate, reads: “[Piccaver’s] son tells us that ... the scores contain notes by Puccini and Mascagni, with whom Piccaver studied.” However, that clearly does not apply to this score of Tosca.

First German edition:
Tosca. Musikdrama in drei Acten ... Deutsch von Max Kalbeck ... Copyright 1900, later also 1899 and 1901.
Ricordi, Milan etc., 1901.
PN 104250, 326 pages, 4°.

Registered at the Prefettura di Milano on 15 July 1901 (I-Rsc 105.A.19).

This edition was published surprisingly early, more than a year before the first German performance on 21 October 1902 in Dresden (see the registration date of the copy in US-Wc). According to MRK, the first printing date of the sales copies was 24 July 1901. According to MRL, production already began on 11 February 1901. The very few differences compared to 69.E.2 are certainly publisher’s errors, and not deliberate changes made by Puccini.
This edition remained unchanged for decades. A copy with the publisher’s address as “Ricordi, Lörrach, 1955” is completely identical with 69.E.2b and does not even convey the corrections of the Italian edition, silently made in the meantime.

69.E.2c

First French edition:
La Tosca. Opéra en 3 Actes de V. Sardou, L. Illica, G. Giacosa. Traduction française de M. Paul Ferrier.
Copyright 1900, later 1902.
Ricordi, Paris, 1902.
PN 104410, 309 pages, 4°.

Registered at the Prefettura di Milano on 12 March 1902 (I-Rsc 107.G.33).

This edition was published a long time before the first French performance in Paris on 13 October 1903 at the Opéra-Comique. According to MRL, production began on 9 July 1901; according to MRK, the first printing date of the sales copies was 5 June 1902. Apart from the correction of errors found in 69.E.2, the very few discrepancies are certainly publisher’s errors and not deliberate changes initiated by Puccini.

69.E.2d

First Russian edition:
Toska. Melodramma in tre atti di V. Sardou — L. Illica — G. Giacosa. Musica di G. Puccini.
Gutheil, Moscow, 1904.
PN A. 8446 G., 307 pages, 4°.

Russian and Italian text.

It is not known when and where Tosca was first performed in the Russian language (Loewenberg 1943, p. 638, mentions a performance in 1918 in Shanghai!). However, beginning in 1901, there were performances of the opera sung in Italian in several Russian cities. Perhaps this edition (probably without Ricordi’s permission) was produced in view of those performances, so the Russian public could become familiar with the opera in its own language and could play it at home.
Other Russian editions with no connection to the Ricordi editions may still exist. One of them is mentioned in Hopkinson 1968 as No. 5 B(k) (Musgiz, Moskwa, 1959, PN 27638, 263 pages); another, in I-Lgp, is indicated as “Perewod A. Maschistowa, Isdatelstwo ‘Musyka’”, Moscow, 1979, PN 10275, 260 pages.

69.E.2e

First English edition:
Tosca. An opera in three acts ... English version by W. Beatty-Kingston. Copyright 1905, later also 1899.
Ricordi, London, 1905.
PN 109916, 335 pages, 4°.

English and Italian text.

Registered at the Prefettura di Milano on 17 August 1905 (I-Rsc 105.B.23).

There were early performances of Tosca in the English language in North America in 1902 and 1903, but the first one in England occured in 1909 in Liverpool (see Loewenberg 1943, p. 637). The blind stamps suggest that the edition was published in the summer of 1905 and MRL records the start of production on 7 November 1904. However, according to MRK, the sales copies were only printed from 12 September 1905. Because of the frequent early Tosca performances sung in Italian at London’s Covent Garden (1900, 1901, 1904, see Rosenthal 1958), this certainly was an edition for the English public, meant not only for a better appreciation of the work but also for use by amateur and professional musicians.
Apart from minor corrections of expression marks, the edition agrees with 69.E.2.

69.E.2f

First Spanish edition:
Tosca. Melodrama en trés actos ... Versión castellana de J. M. Alvira. Copyright 1911.
Ricordi, Milan, 1911.
PN 112948, 221 pages, 4°.

Registered at the Prefettura di Milano on 11 February 1911 (I-Rsc 103.D.38).

There is no evidence of an early performance of Tosca in the Spanish language, but ever since 1900 there have been countless performances of the opera sung in Italian in Spain and in Spanish speaking South and Central America. This edition, production of which began on 17 May 1909 (according to MRL), with printing begun on 30 March 1911 (according to MRK), was primarily intended for sale in the Spanish speaking countries. Musically, it completely agrees with 69.E.2.

69.E.2g

Tosca. Melodramma in tre atti di V. Sardou — L. Illica — G. Giacosa. Musica di G. Puccini. Partitura d’orchestra.
Copyright 1924.
Ricordi, Milan etc., 1924.
PN 119160, 436 pages, 8°.

Announced in Musica d’Oggi of June 1924, p. 186.

According to MRL, the beginning of production of the edition was on 5 October 1922. On 17 June 1923 Puccini expressed his wish to see proofs of this full score before it was published (see Carteggi 1958 No. 868). It was only on 1 February 1924 that he sent his corrections to the publisher (see NOTES). According to the earliest legible blind stamp, the edition was probably published in March 1924; according to MRK, printing of the sales copies began on 30 April 1924.
Compared to 69.E.2a, the changes only involve minor details and do not substantially affect the composition (apart from the inclusion of the optional cut in Act 2, still missing in the earlier copies of this edition). Smaller changes of instrumentation had obviously already been made in the preceding years and entered into the corresponding rental material, now missing from Ricordi’s archives (see Fairtile 1996, pp. 358–362).

69.E.2h

Tosca. Melodramma in 3 atti. Libretto di G. Giacosa e L. Illica. Tratto dal dramma di V. Sardou. Partitura (nuova edizione riveduta e corretta).
Copyright 1900.
Ricordi, Milan etc., 1954.
PN P.R.111, 436 pages, 8°.

Printed from the plates of 69.E.2g with insignificant changes, particularly serving to standardize the comparatively few variants.
Later printings exist (also in 4°) with the indication “A cura di Mario Parenti (1963).”

69.E.2i

Second English edition:
New English version by Joseph Machlis.
Copyright 1956 ... per la traduzione inglese di J. Machlis. Ricordi, Milan, 1956.
PN 109916 (also N.Y. 1803), 335 pages, 4°.

English and Italian text.

Musically, the edition agrees with 69.E.2e.

69.E.2k

Third Italian edition:
Nuova edizione a cura di Mario Parenti (1960).
Ricordi, Milan, 1960.
PN 103050, 310 pages, 4°.

As with the later reprints of 69.E.2, slight changes in this edition were made silently.

69.E.2l

Second German edition:
Neue deutsche Übertragung von Günther Rennert ... Nach dem Autograph der Partitur revidiert von Francesco Bellezza (1966).
Copyright 1966.
Ricordi, Munich, 1966.
PN 130792, XXIV pages of front matter + 272 pages of music, 4°.

German and Italian text. 

Catalogued in MRL on 19 October 1964, with chorus parts containing this translation (PN 130875) on 23 July 1965.

The edition relies, in part, on Puccini’s autograph full score and the published full scores for numerous details, but it does not substantially alter the musical version of 69.E.2. The critical commentary only provides a very incomplete survey of the variants from the autograph full score and from the previous editions.

69.E.2m

Third German edition:
Musikdrama in drei Akten nach dem gleichnamigen Drama von Victorien Sardou. Li- bretto von Giuseppe Giacosa und Luigi Illica. Deutsche Fassung von Carl Riha und Volkmar Leimert. Klavierauszug von Horst Gurgel.
Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig, 1975.
273 pages of music, 4°.

69.E.3

Second French edition:
Copyright 1902, later also 1899.
Ricordi, Paris, 1909 (?).
PN 104410, 309 pages, 4°.

It seems that this edition, published at the latest at the beginning of 1909 (see the copy in GB-Lbl), reflects the usual changes made in the numerous performances at the Paris Opéra-Comique since 1903.Note: *There is an old set of parts from the Opéra-Comique (F-Pn, Mat.F.450) containing these changes as handwritten entries, which are still recognizable despite later markings for specific performances.  Although the edition was printed from the plates of 69.E.2c, with the usual corrections of some details, it also includes the following more important changes:

Act 2:

Act 3:

There is no evidence that Puccini attended any performances of Tosca in Paris after October 1908. Therefore it is uncertain if these changes, some of which concur with modern performance practice, were made with or without the composer’s approval. In any case, they were not adopted in any of the later editions supervised by the composer. Only the cut of fig. 24+2/5 in the second act had already been published as an option in 69.E.2a. As such, it was included in the posthumous editions but not in the early copies of the octavo edition of the full score corrected by Puccini (69.E.2g).

69.E.4

Fourth Italian edition:
Partitura. Nuova edizione riveduta sulle fonti originali a cura di Roger Parker (1989). Copyright 1990.
Ricordi, Milan, 1990.
PN 135428, 436 pages, 2°.
Full score and orchestra parts (PN 135429/30) available only on rental.

69.E.4a

Piano-vocal score of 69.E.4:
Melodramma in tre atti di Luigi Illica e Giuseppe Giacosa tratto dal dramma di Victorien Sardou. Versione inglese di Roger Parker. Riduzione per canto e pianoforte condotta sulla nuova edizione della partitura riveduta sulle fonti originali a cura di Roger Parker.
Copyright 1990 and 1995.
Ricordi, Milan, 1995.
PN 135431, LII pages of front matter + 335 pages of music, 4°.

Italian and English text.

The pages before the music contain some of the “Commento critico” (see 69.E.4).

MRL catalogued this edition in September 1990. There have also been a differently bound printing (PN 136774) and two differently bound editions in English only (PNs 136775 and 136776), all catalogued in MRL  on 2 January 1995. A German edition, catalogued in MRL on 1 March 1995 (PN 136819), has not yet been published.

More than 69.E.2l, this edition approaches a critical edition, although it mainly serves for practical performance purposes rather than pursuing scholarly critical objectives. It compares the autograph full score more thoroughly, albeit not quite precisely, with the printed editions of the previous full and piano-vocal scores, also taking into account the variants found in 69.E.3. Therefore it is listed here as an independent edition, although musically it (correctly) remains quite faithful to 69.E.2.