In my personal opinion it's best to start a traditional adventure(so that's excluding games like Dreamfall or Overclocked) narrow. Two or three screens at most. However the problem with this can be that you devise a tutorial that is unrelated to the rest of the game. This to my mind is very bad, I feel every puzzle in the game should be integral to the main storyline.
A good example of a narrow start that works is the opening segment of The Book of Unwritten Tales which I played recently. It has a very narrow start with a puzzle that is not overly complicated but still challenging enough. Not only does it serve very well as a tutorial it also puts the whole storyline in motion. I think it's one of the finest opening segments I came across lately and definitely a great way to open a game.
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