High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Fedora is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the play Fedora by Victorien Sardou. Along with Andrea Chenier and Siberia, it is one of the most notable works of Giordano. It was first performed at the Teatro Lirico in Milan on November 17, 1898 conducted by the composer with Gemma Bellincioni creating the role of Fedora, and Enrico Caruso as her lover, Loris Ipanov. In 1889, Umberto Giordano saw Sardou's play Fedora at the Teatro Bellini di Napoli, with Sarah Bernhardt (for whom the play was written) in the title role. He immediately asked Sardou for permission to base an opera on the play, which Sardou initially refused. At the time, Giordano was a relatively unknown composer. Following the premiere of his 1894 Regina Diaz, Giordano's publisher, Edoardo Sonzogno, asked Sardou again. However, Sardou asked for what Sozogno considered an exhorbitant fee.