Les Vêpres Siciliennes, Gd. Opéra en 5 actes Poème de MM E. Scribe et G Duveyrier... Partition Piano et Chant Prix 30f. Net. Sur étain par A. Vialon. Accompagt. de Piano par H. Potier. [Piano-vocal score]

Paris: Léon Escudier [PNs L.E. 1500.; L.E. 1500. (1-4, 6-9, 11, 14); L.E. 1501. (1-3); L.E. 1504 (4).], 1855. Folio. Quarter contemporary dark green textured cloth with dark green pebbled paper boards, blind rules to spine, titling gilt. 1f. (recto title engraved by A. Vialon with the names of four of Verdi's operas printed within decorative borders, verso blank), [1] (named cast list and table of contents), 2-415, [i] (blank) pp. Engraved.

Named cast includes Cruvelli, Sannier, Gueymard, Bonnehée, Obin, Boulo, Loenig, Marié, Coulon, and Guignot.

Publisher's handstamp to lower margin of title.

Binding somewhat worn and rubbed; endpapers browned. Occasional light foxing, soiling, and bleeding; several corners slightly creased; small tear to lower margin of pp. 55-56 with archival tape repair, not affecting music; several pages with minor annotations in pencil. A very attractive copy overall. First Edition of the first version of the opera. Hopkinson 56A(a). Chusid p. 170.

Les Vêpres siciliennes, to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier after their libretto Le duc d'Albe, was first performed in Paris at the Opéra on June 13, 1855.

"For those wishing to understand Verdi's musical development during the 1850s, Les vêpres siciliennes is of enormous importance. In both strictly formal terms and in larger matters of operatic structure, it marks a decisive turn away from the language of the middle-period Italian operas and the emergence of many stylistic features we associate with the later Verdi. There is no subsequent Verdi opera in which the experience of Les vêpres will not be recalled and refined." Roger Parker in Grove Music Online.