Verdi’s work with the Teatro San Carlo of Naples stumbled when he elected to give La battaglia di Legnano to another theater—an annulment of contract to which the Teatro San Carlo responded by threatening to have librettist Salvatore Cammarano thrown in jail. Verdi provided a new opera instead, entering into a dense correspondence with Cammarano to develop, in Verdi’s words, "a short drama with plenty of interest, plenty of action, and a huge amount of passion." Cammarano turned to Friedrich Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) to develop a bourgeois tragedy called Luisa Miller, which opened at the Teatro San Carlo on December 8, 1849. This volume presents Jeffrey Kallberg’s critical edition of the autograph score, reconstructed from the smallest details to the recovery, where possible, of original versions (included in the Appendix): the original version of Luisa’s cantabile and the alteration to the instrumental parts of the chorus "Quale un sorriso d’amica sorte." An historical introduction draws on Verdi and Cammarano’s well-documented correspondence to lend additional context to the opera.

This edition includes a new English singing translation by Mark Herman and Ronnie Apter.