where he was staying. Donizetti offered his Poliuto to the Académie Royale de Musique and it was accepted for performances to begin in April 1840. While in Paris, a city which increasingly he came to dislike, Donizetti oversaw stagings of Roberto Devereux and L'elisir d'amore during the following December and January, and he also negotiated a longer time-frame for the delivery of the completed libretto of Les martyrs from Scribe as well as that for having the completed score of the second commission ready. This commission, which became known as Le duc d'Albe, was never completed. During 1839, Lucia di Lammermoor, after being translated into French, became Lucie de Lammermoor, and this version was presented in August. With rehearsals for Les martyrs not planned until early 1840, the composer had time to write yet another opera, La fille du régiment, his first written directly to a French text. It received its premiere on 11 February 1840, by which time Les martyrs was in rehearsal for performances in April. Although Donizetti was obliged to shift the placement of arias to other locations in the text, Scribe had to accept the modification of some of his text to fit the existing music but, given the overall expansion of the opera into four acts, new material needed to be created by both writer and composer, most especially for the end of act 1 and the beginning of act 2, both of which were expanded well beyond the original. Performance history 19th century Prior to the original Poliuto being presented in Italy, a translation of Les martyrs appeared there as Paolina e Poliuto and then as Paolina e Severo (in Rome in December 1849), finally becoming I martiri. However, the "more compact, three-act Poliuto was generally preferred" and under its original title, it was given its premiere on 30 November 1848, a few months after Donizetti's death. Prior to 1860, and performances were given in some sixteen locations throughout Italy and "fairly regularly throughout the second half of the [19th] century" In a German translation, it was given in Vienna on 6 June 1841 under Donizetti's supervision. Later, it provided a vehicle for dramatic tenors such as Enrico Tamberlik (at Covent Garden in London in 1852) and Francesco Tamagno (in Rome in April 1883) and he also appeared in the second and third acts in a benefit in Rome in April 1904 conducted by