Franco Alfano nine months on the following concluding duet and at his death had left behind a whole ream of sketches... Alfano had to reconstruct...according to his best assessment...and with his imagination and magnifying glass" since Puccini's material "had not really been legible." "Alfano's reputation has also suffered [IC:along with Mascagni], understandably, because of his willingness to associate himself closely with Mussolini's Fascist government." Alex Ross, in "The New Yorker", notes that a new ending of "Turandot" composed by Luciano Berio premiered in 2002 is preferred by some critics for making a more satisfactory resolution of Turandot's change of heart, and of
Giacomo Puccini The performance was enough of a success that Casa Ricordi purchased the opera. Revised into a two-act version with an intermezzo between the acts, "Le Villi" was performed at La Scala in Milan, on 24 January 1885. However, Ricordi did not publish the score until 1887, hindering further performance of the work. Giulio Ricordi, head of G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers, was sufficiently impressed with "Le Villi" and its young composer that he commissioned a second opera, which would result in "Edgar". Work was begun in 1884 when Fontana began working out the scenario for the libretto. Puccini finished