The opera premiered on November 19, 1988, in Dallas with a cast including Elisabeth Söderström, Frederica von Stade, and Richard Stilwell, conducted by Nicola Rescigno.
For instance: Aspern is a composer, not a poet; Juliana, an opera singer; the locale is changed from Venice to Lake Como.
Juliana Bordereau, a former prima donna and the mistress of the deceased composer Jeffrey Aspern, is living with her spinster niece Tina in a villa on the edge of Lake Como.
The Lodger is a scholar and biographer of Aspern, and believes that Juliana may possess papers and memorabilia of the composer, including possibly the score of an operatic masterpiece based on Medea that Aspern wrote for Juliana shortly before his death fifty years earlier (and believed to be lost).
[4] The Aspern Papers was performed by the Washington Opera (1990), in which Katherine Ciesinski, who had portrayed Sonia in the 1988 premiere assumed the role of Tina, with Robert Orth (The Lodger), David Kuebler (Aspern), Pamela South (Juliana), Eric Halfvarson (reprising his premiere performance as Barelli) and Susan Graham (Sonia).