La Cenerentola (Cinderella) is a masterpiece significantly different from Rossini's earlier comic operas. Deftly combining aspects of several genres, Rossini plays off comic characters in the great Italian tradition—Don Magnifico (Cinderella's stepfather) and the valet Dandini—against the sentimental principal roles of Cinderella and the Prince. For his heroine Rossini not only adapts the popular semiseria genre, but also exploits the coloratura style of opera seria, as she is transformed into a princess not by magic but by love and her own innate goodness.

For the hastily-prepared premiere of La Cenerentola in Rome in 1817 a collaborator wrote the simple recitatives, a chorus, and arias for Alidoro (the Prince's tutor) and Clorinda (a stepsister). The chorus was soon dropped, and in 1821 Rossini wrote a new aria for Alidoro. This critical edition provides all the music for the first version, including variants for Clorinda. Appendixes include Rossini's own aria for Alidoro and his variations for Cinderella's final Rondo.

The libretto for La gazzetta, written by Giuseppe Palomba, was based on a play by Carlo Goldoni entitled Il matrimonio per concorso. Rossini drew a two-act comic opera from this libretto chiefly by recycling old music, a fact that has weighed heavily in critical reaction to the work. But as this edition reveals, this view is misleading. Rossini himself wrote each borrowed piece or section anew in its entirety by significantly modifying details, changing vocal lines throughout, and introducing numerous orchestral modifications. The resulting opera—first performed on September 26, 1816, at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples—is delightful, with Goldoni's wonderful structure and characters given superb musical life by Rossini. This critical edition, edited by Fabrizio Scipioni, presents the full score in two volumes, along with a separate volume of insightful commentary.

Now one of Verdi's most beloved works, La traviata was initially far from a success. Verdi declared its 1853 premiere a "fiasco," and later reworked parts of five pieces in the first two acts, retaining the original setting for the rest. The first performance of the new version in 1854 was a tremendous success, and the opera was quickly taken up by theaters around the world.

This critical edition presents the 1854 version as the main score, and also makes available for the first time in full score the original 1853 settings of the revised pieces. For this edition Fabrizio della Seta used not only the composer's autograph and many secondary sources, but also Verdi's previously unknown sketches. These sketches helped corroborate the original readings and illuminate the work's compositional stages. The editor's wide-ranging introduction traces the opera's genesis, sources, performance history and practices, and a detailed critical commentary discusses source problems and ambiguities.
 

Luisa Miller, a milestone in the maturation of Verdi's style, is the fifth work to be published in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi. Following the strict requirements of the series, this edition is based on Verdi's autograph and other authentic sources, and has been reviewed by a distinguished editorial board—Philip Gossett (general editor), Julian Budden, Martin Chusid, Francesco Degrada, Ursula Günter, Giorgio Pestelli, and Pierluigi Petrobelli. It is available as a two-volume set: a full orchestral score and a critical commentary. The newly set score is printed on acid-free paper and beautifully bound in an oversized format. The introduction to the score discusses the work's genesis, sources, and performance history as well as performance practice, instrumentation, and problems of notation. The critical commentary discusses editorial decisions and identifies the sources of alternate readings of the music and libretto.