Throughout the rest of the 19th century and for most of the 20th, the Stiffelio autograph was generally presumed to be lost. 20th century performances before October 1993 Hansell is clear on several points regarding any performances between 1856 and October 1993: All previous modern editions, including the score prepared by Edward Downes and first performed in January 1993 by The Royal Opera company at Covent Garden, were based largely or entirely on secondary sources, such as the early printed vocal score and defective 19th-century manuscript copies of the full score. For the Covent Garden performances, with José Carreras as Stiffelio, Philip Gossett made preliminary corrections of the vocal parts only, based on the newly recovered autograph materials. Although vocal scores were known, the discovery of a copyist's score at the Naples Conservatory in the 1960s led to a successful revival at the Teatro Regio in Parma in 1968. A new performing edition, prepared for Bärenreiter from microfilm of the Naples copyist's score, was obtained in order to restore the composer's intentions as far as possible. This was the basis of performances at Naples and Cologne, but it cut material (especially from the act 1 overture and choruses) and it added in sections from Aroldo, which were not in the original score. This became the source of the UK premiere in an English language production given by University College Opera (then the Music Society) in London in 1973. Given that even the original premiere of the work was in a version partly cut by the censors, this production was probably one of the first ever close-to-authentic performances of the work. The American stage premiere was given by Vincent La Selva and the New York Grand Opera on 4 June 1976 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with Richard Taylor as Stiffelio and Norma French as Lina. The opera was also given by Sarah Caldwell and the Opera Company of Boston on 17 February 1978. The Stiffelio autograph found; The Met presents the "new" Stiffelio; the critical edition prepared In his book, Divas and Scholars, Philip Gossett, the General Editor of the critical editions of the Verdi operas published by the University of Chicago, tells the story of how "to [his] immense joy" the original Verdi materials came to be seen by him in February 1992 when the Carrara Verdi family allowed access to the autograph and to copies of about