while Muzio returned to Milan. After the Masnadieri, in order to satisfy the remaining opera contracted with Lucca, Verdi proposed Il corsaro, was offered a counter proposal which he rejected, and from Paris in February 1848 Verdi sent the completed score to Lucca via Muzio. Budden comments "In no other opera of his does Verdi appear to have taken so little interest before it was staged". Where and when it was to be staged, who the singers would be, and by which stage director was left to the publisher. Performance history 19th century Lucca decided on the Teatro Grande (now the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi) in Trieste as the location for the Spring 1848 premiere, but political events in Lombardy postponed it until the autumn. The opera house management felt that Muzio would be capable to handling the staging, but having fled to Switzerland, he became unavailable and the task was handled by Luigi Ricci who, along with his brother Federico, were minor composers of the day. Verdi did not attend the first performance. However, Verdi's biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz feels that Lucca chose a good house and a cast "almost as good as anyone could have mustered in Europe at the time." In addition, she quotes from a long letter which Verdi wrote to the soprano Marianna Barbieri-Nini, who had been his Lady Macbeth at the 1847 premiere of that opera. In the letter, Verdi said that he wanted "to tell you a few things about your pieces", and gives her some very explicit advice on how to sing Gulnara. As it turned out, the opera was poorly received by both the press and the public in Trieste, an unusual occurrence for Verdi. Budden notes that it "vanished from the repertoire after three performances" and that the local feeling would have been that "Trieste deserves a better opera than this". Relatively few performances were given in Italy after the premiere, although it was staged in Milan and Turin in 1852, and in Modena, Novara, Venice, and Vercelli in 1853. 20th century and beyond The opera was given its first performances in Britain (London) in March 1966 and in the US in December 1981. It was presented as part of a Verdi Festival by the San Diego Opera in 1982 with Rosalind Plowright and June Anderson, and in 2004 by the Sarasota Opera as part of its "Verdi Cycle". The