Appendix 1 - Error transmission

Summary

A complete list of all kinds of errors and variants that distinguish one opera score from another would fill a sizable tome. What follows are short selections of indicative variants, which will be useful in future when other scores turn up requiring evaluation. Whenever such an exercise is undertaken, it is vital to remember that an opera score (as now constituted) may well represent a collation of materials from different sources, producing a rather random picture.

Appendix 1.1 A selection of Set A Prague errors

Set A Prague errors are found in the Prague Conservatory score. Those in Act I were not transmitted to later Prague copies, since a second copy was made directly from the autograph which acted as a reference score. Mistakes in Act II, however, could survive uncorrected into the Prague transmission of the opera, because the second copy was made from the Conservatory score itself. Errors from both acts passed into the Vienna line of transmission, which used the Prague Conservatory score as its main exemplar. Scores of Vienna 2a like the Lausch and Juilliard copies tend to repeat these mistakes. On the other hand, scores of Vienna 2b, such as the Vienna Court Theatre materials (O.A.361/1 and O.A.361/Stimmen, and later copies) are mainly correct. The errors were probably identified during the preparations for performance.