I turn to the learned readers of operatalent.com in the auspicious hope that there is someone out there in the ether who can help me. I have lost Edgar, and there’s no hiding my increasing sense of vexation. It’s now twenty-five years since he came into my life. It was on a wild and windswept night at Wexford; a never to be forgotten evening. True, his house was
burning down at the time, but still he sang his heart out and I was not the only one reduced to tears by his plight. He is infatuated with that hussy Tigrana (there’s far too much of the Carmen in her for my liking) and having run off with her, he tries to make amends by leaving her and enlisting to fight for his country. Although a soldier, and having fallen in battle, Edgar attempts
some after-death disguise as a monk in order to win his one true love Fidelia. Such a public display of integrity leaves that temptress Tigrana no choice but to stab Fidelia and my last memory of Edgar is of him holding Fidelia’s lifeless body while grieving villagers kneel beside him in prayer. Curtain Down. Tumultuous applause. Time to dry one’s tears.
I blame Ferdinando Fontana for all this. Never has such a crass and untheatrical libretto been written. We are often warned about the dangers of putting children and animals on stage. Neither should any poor opera singer have to set fire to his cottage in full view of the fee-paying
public. True, he makes mistakes, but Edgar was not the only lad in that Flemish village to be infatuated by that minx Tigrana. And yes, truth and reconciliation win through in the end.
So, can we please send out the search parties? Edgar must be out there somewhere and there are many of us, who while only making such a fleeting acquaintance, would so dearly enjoy another encounter. Our disbelief is all ready to be suspended, and I, for one, make no bones about the level of disbelief involved. But in doing so, we will gain something glorious. Am I the only one tired of Tosca - and even slightly bored by that French Bohemian waif Mimi?
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Edgar needs to be found because he sings such ravishingly beautiful music. He is aflame (literally?) with passion, and it shows in those heart-breaking melodies he outpours. His presence with us would make a welcome alternative to certain overplayed and over-performed potboilers. I am happy to join the countless opera -lovers in grateful thanks for the labours of Messers Kobbe and Harewood in bringing the joys of Der Bettelstudent by Karl Millocker, Maritana by Vincent Wallace and Francesca da Rimini by Riccardo Zandonai to our attention. I’m sure a listen to each of them reaps dividends. But, there’s no mention of Edgar!! A lacuna of shocking proportions! Even the much-underrated Naxos record label, which seems to have an at least tolerable recording of every major Opera I can think of, has yet to record a note of Edgar.
So, come all you young artists and Opera lovers. Dig out a score from the Archives. Search the 78s for a recording, and a transport of delight will be yours. Oh, and it’s by Puccini, by the way. What more can a man ask for! In 2008 we will all be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Giacomo Puccini. What better way of doing so than to reappraise his most unduly neglected opera? Surely some enterprising company or other could perform a work with such a truly preposterous libretto and yet such touchingly beautiful music.
John Turner
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