One Night of Love in his usual place in the prompter's box. The complete proscenium and part of the wings and seating plan of the Metropolitan Opera House were duplicated for this production and occupied the whole of Columbia's largest sound stage. Moore's recording and performance of the "Un bel di" aria from "Madame Butterfly" did not go smoothly, as she had trouble hitting the high notes. According to a later biography, she flew into a rage and blamed the orchestra, however, when studio boss Harry Cohn asked Columbia music director, Morris Stoloff, what the problem was, Stoloff replied, "There's nothing wrong with the
Giacomo Puccini would write his own libretto so that "no fool of a librettist" could spoil it. Ricordi persuaded him to accept Ruggero Leoncavallo as his librettist, but Puccini soon asked Ricordi to remove him from the project. Four other librettists were then involved with the opera, as Puccini constantly changed his mind about the structure of the piece. It was almost by accident that the final two, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, came together to complete the opera. "Manon Lescaut" premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 2 February 1893. By coincidence, Puccini's first enduringly popular opera appeared within a