the drama.....They are truly a character, and a character of greatest importance." The new version was first performed on 21 April 1865 in a French translation by Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter and Alexandre Beaumont, although Verdi had asked for it to be done by Gilbert Duprez, the tenor-turned-teacher in whom he had great confidence and whom he knew from his performances in his first opera for Paris, Jérusalem in 1847. The composer refused to attend the Paris performance, but provided directions via his publisher, others directly to Escudier. Initially, the reports from Escudier were favourable, but the first performance was poorly received by the critics, something which puzzled the composer: "I thought I had done quite well with it...it appears I was mistaken" he stated when he wrote to his Paris publisher, Escudier. Later performances in Paris fared no better. In Italian, the opera was given at La Scala in the autumn of 1865, but few if any others in Italy appear to have been presented. Since its revival in Europe from the 1960s, the revised version of Macbeth in Italian remains the preferred version for modern performances, although usually the death scene from the first version is often interpolated in the last act. Performance history 19th century The 1847 version, after it was first given on 14 March of that year in Florence, was successful and was performed all over Italy in some 21 locations (some repeated) until the revised version appeared in 1865, at which time it was recorded that it was given only in Turin (1867), Vicenza (1869), Firenze (1870), and Milan (1874). The first version was given its United States premiere in April 1850 at Niblo's Garden in New York with Angiolina Bosio as Lady Macbeth and Cesare Badiali as Banco, while the United Kingdom premiere took place in October 1860 in Manchester. After the 1865 premiere of the revised version, which was followed by only 13 more performances, the opera generally fell from popularity. It was given in Paris in April 1865 and then occasionally up to about 1900. However, after that, it was rarely performed until after World War II. 20th century and beyond The US premiere of the later version did not take place until 24 October 1941 in New York, but two European productions, in Berlin in the 1930s and at Glyndebourne in 1938 and 1939, were important in helping the 20th century revival.