Passion

Cast

Many changes were made during previews. Some were minor, some were major. They included:

A character name was changed, with Major Rivolti being rechristened Major Rizzoli.

The actor playing Doctor Tambourri, William Duff-Griffin, was fired and replaced by Tom Aldredge. As originally played by Duff-Griffin, the character was somewhat comic (perhaps unintentionally) and generally a bit closer to the way he was portrayed in Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore. 

In Giorgio's first letter to Clara describing Fosca, he originally sang, "The ugliness, God, the ugliness of that poor, unhappy creature." The word ugliness was changed to wretchedness.

The several gossip sections for the soldiers were more jumpy musically and the lyrics were less humorous.

The flashback sequence was originally longer, including more detail about the process by which Ludovic bilked Fosca and her parents of their money. In addition to cuts, changes were made to some lyrics. Here are a few examples of the changes and cuts:

• When recounting that Fosca's parents had told her that she was beautiful, the Colonel sang, "Of course, she was deluded." This was echoed a few seconds later by Fosca singing "I was deluded / I thought that I was beautiful."

• The passage for Fosca and the Colonel that became "Whereas, if you're a woman / You either are a daughter or a wife," was originally "Whereas an unnattractive woman / is easily deceived" for the Colonel, with Fosca singing "is very little wanted" instead of "is easily deceived."

• In the final section of the flashback, the lyric was originally "An unattractive man / Has many opportunities / An unattractive woman / Wants only to be loved." This became "As long as you're a man / You're what the world will make of you / Whereas if you're a woman / You're only what it sees."

When Giorgio confronted Doctor Tambourri, asking him "Why did you bring this woman into my life?", the Doctor replied, "Perhaps to get her out of mine, even if just for a short while. I had no intention for it to turn into this." This was changed to "I thought it would help her. I thought it might bring her some small degree of happiness." Also, in the final version the Doctor apologized to Giorgio in the scene. He did not explicitly apologize when previews started.

Fosca's song "Loving You" was added to the train scene, which originally had no song.

Originally, in her final letter Clara told Giorgio that her husband had discovered one of his letters to her. She tells him that her husband has forgiven her, but she is breaking off relations with Giorgio entirely. The letter was sorrowful ("I am writing to you, my angel / Shedding tears with every word / From the pain that's in my heart") and apologetic (in a spoken section, she said, "How selfish I have been. Selfish to him. And now selfish to you."), but decisive. She is discovering what it means to be a wife and a mother, and sees a difference between happiness and love ("I thought I knew what love was / But now I know that love is an obligation / And happiness a different consideration."). She says that it's precisely because she loves Giorgio so much that she cannot have him in her life at all, not even as a friend ("You were everything / You cannot be just anything / And so we must be nothing / I need to make you nothing / Nothing, nothing."). Giorgio had no lines, sung or spoken, during Clara's letter, nor any sung or spoken response to it after her exit.

Giorgio had a major song or aria, sometimes referred to as "No One Has Ever Loved Me Like Fosca," which he sang to Doctor Tambourri. This was deleted from that scene but it was revised to become a slower and shorter song that Giorgio sang to Fosca in the next scene. Some productions have restored the deleted song, while also including the revised version in the next scene.

The finale was significantly revised. Originally, after the contrapuntal beginning reprising themes heard earlier in the show, it was simply a reprise of "I Wish I Could Forget You," sung mostly as a duet by Giorgio and Fosca. As in the final version, the entire company joined in at "I don't know how I let you so far inside my mind," and from then on it continued as in the final version.

Main Run

• Plymouth Theatre (New York, NY)
  May 9, 1994 - January 7, 1995

Commercial Recordings

• Original Broadway Cast (1994)
  Marin Mazzie , Jere Shea , Gregg Edelman , Tom Aldredge , Francis Ruivivar

Private Recordings

• Original Broadway Cast (First Preview) (March 24, 1994)
  Marin Mazzie , Jere Shea , Donna Murphy , Gregg Edelman , William Duff-Griffin
• Original Broadway Cast (Previews) (April 1994)
  Marin Mazzie , Jere Shea , Donna Murphy , Gregg Edelman , William Duff-Griffin

Broadcast Recordings

• No broadcast audio listed yet.

Archival Recordings

• No archival audio listed yet.

Commercial Recordings

• Original Broadway Cast (1995)
  Marin Mazzie , Jere Shea , Gregg Edelman , Tom Aldredge , Francis Ruivivar

Private Recordings

• Original Broadway Cast (August 17, 1994)
  Marin Mazzie , Jere Shea , Gregg Edelman , Tom Aldredge , Francis Ruivivar

Broadcast Recordings

• No broadcast video listed yet.

Archival Recordings

• No archival video listed yet.