on 20 April 1918, and Puccini continued to refine and orchestrate it through the summer of 1918. With the trilogy complete, Puccini had to decide on a place for the premiere. In 1918, travel was risky and uncertain. Puccini received an offer from Buenos Aires which he refused, unwilling to have so complex a work first performed overseas in his absence. He finally agreed that the premiere could take place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, without his being there, on the basis of performing instructions which he supplied to the conductor. proved to be the last opera completed by Puccini. Performance history Early performances was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera on 14 December 1918, with Roberto Moranzoni conducting, as the final part of . While the sold-out house showed polite enthusiasm for and , was, in the words of the New-York Tribunes critic, "received with uproarious delight". In the Evening Sun, W.J. Henderson called it "one of the most delightful bits ever put upon the Met stage". The undoubted "pearl of the evening", he said, was Lauretta's aria which, despite a public notice forbidding encores, was repeated through popular insistence. The only singer to appear in all three works was American soprano Marie Tiffany, who played one of the lovers in , a lay sister in , and Nella in . was performed at the Met's Philadelphia opera house on 17 December with the same cast, before returning to New York for five more performances during the 1918/19 season. At the time of the New York premiere, was in rehearsal in Rome in preparation for an Italian premiere at the Teatro Costanzi. Puccini wrote Tito Ricordi that the rehearsals were going slowly, but that the orchestra sounded fine, at least in . The Italian premiere, more important to Puccini than the New York world premiere, took place on 11 January 1919. was again warmly received, more so than the first two operas of . Among those dissatisfied by the triptych was Puccini's friend, the conductor Arturo Toscanini, who was in the audience for the Rome premiere. Toscanini was disgusted by the of , and left the performance after the first curtain. This caused a rift in his relationship with Puccini, who stated that he would not allow "this god" to conduct the London premiere, though the two were later reconciled. At the Rome premiere, the part of