As well as shared themes of estrangement, reunion and revenge, both operas have rejection in common. Neither won a competition for one-act operas by unpublished composers. Puccini's only opera with a ...
Both short works owe their composition to the contest for new one-act operas run by the Milanese publisher Sonzogno for two decades from the early 1880s. Neither won: not Le Villi in 1883 (the young ...