Puccini’s second opera, first performed at La Scala in 1889, was deemed a failure. The composer returned to it on several occasions, altering it, and ditching the final act. Although seldom performed, in its three-act version it has had several recordings, notably those conducted by Eve Queler with Carlo Bergonzi in the title-role (Sony, 1/78), Yoel Levi with Carl Tanner (Naïve), and Alberto Veronesi with Plácido Domingo (DG, 6/06). Until recently, the original fourth act was supposed to be lost, but then the American musicologist Linda B Fairtile started work to attempt a reconstruction, which led to Puccini’s granddaughter, Simonetta, finding the manuscript in the family’s archives.

The libretto of Edgar is taken from a story by Alfred de Musset. The attraction must have been the contrast between the hero’s infatuation for the exotic temptress Tigrana, and the pure village maiden Fidelia. The situation is not unlike Carmen, but then there are huge plot complications when Edgar pretends to have died in battle and stages his own funeral, in order to test the love of his rival girlfriends. As Puccini must have recognised, the fourth act comes as an anticlimax after this big confrontation, with Edgar disguised as a monk, declaiming from the pulpit.

In Lorenzo Mariani’s Turin production, the action is transposed from the 14th century to the time of the Risorgimento. Act 1 finds everyone dressed in white for a summer picnic. When Edgar and Tigrana have escaped to the city in Act 2, it looks like a production of Traviata, with all the men in top hats and the girls in red feathers. Act 3, though, goes with terrific zest, José Cura as Edgar in disguise, holding forth with burnished tone, and Amarilli Nizza singing “Addio, mio dolce amor” – the one passage that has become fairly well known – with considerable feeling.

Act 4 turns out to have a sort of mad scene for Fidelia. No sooner has she been told that Edgar is in fact alive, than she is stabbed to death by Tigrana; Julia Gertseva makes the most of this ungrateful part. In the end, Edgar is left without either. One can sense Puccini grappling with all the diverse influences on his music, a bit of Wagner, a bit of Verdi, a touch of Donizetti – occasionally his own style seems to be forming, only to be swamped again. Yoram David controls the huge orchestra and chorus with impressive authority.