He was walking near Teatro Regio Torino. I would have asked him about this opera Edgar by Puccini: what did he think of the opera itself and of the role of Edgar, what did fascinate him about this opera. But I did not talk to him. I was thinking about seeing the opera again on this day, Saturday 5, July (it would be with another cast, but could still be interesting). No, I was to tired and had a head-ache.
But I bought Edgar on CD with Plácido Domingo as Edgar, Adriana Damato as Fidelia, Marianne Cornetti as Tigrana, and Juan Pons as Frank. Only this was the 3 act version and that meant that all the wonderful music in act 4 was missing. So no long love duet here. The 3 act version was shorter and made even less sense than the 4 act version. Juan Pons was a luxury Frank. Adriana Damato was a wonderful Fidelia. Plácido Domingo was solid as Edgar. Marianne Cornetti was not quite there as Tigrana. I had thought about bying the CD set of Edgar earlier but only after seeing it live did I think that I should buy it. But it was a sour point that it was only 3 acts, that made it almost cheap losing all the loveliness in act 4.
I wonder what José Cura thought about this opera. Did he find Edgar rewarding musically and an interesting challenge to act a role like Edgar He had sung previously TOSCA in Vienna with Amarilli Nizza (Fidelia) and Marco Vratogna (Frank), and CARMEN/Samson et Dalila with Julia Gertseva (Tigrana). And then it must be exciting to sing in an opera that is so seldom shown in theatres.
My stay in Turin went to an end. EDGAR is an opera that you get to enjoy more after a while but it will never be able to compete with Puccini's other masterworks like TOSCA, BUTTERFLY... The story is too weak and it is musically not enough developed.
I had the luck to stay in Hotel ROMA in Turin. I liked it there. Next time I will travel to Turin I will try to stay in the same hotel and I will try to fly to Turin instead of Milan so that I would not have to take the train between Turin and Milan. It is not that I do not like to take the train but it is inconvenient.
Sunday 6. july. Unlike so many of my friends I will not see Edgar again this Sunday with José Cura, Amarilli Nizza, Marco Vratogna because I am going home. This meant an early train to Milan and then airport bus to Malpensa Airport. I was extremely lucky to be so early in Malpensa because I had gone out at the wrong terminal. Which was the real reason that Malpensa did not look as the Malpensa I knew. And so with bus to the correct terminal and now suddenly a bit of stress and no relaxing. And then everything should go OK. I was in Oslo in time and had a flight back to home booked. But in Norway there had been a lot a bad weather. It was raining and not only that some lightning had destroyed some of the equipment in the airport so we flew to another airport and from there it was bus home. 2 hours delayed. But it was still Sunday just a bit close to Monday.
For more reviews from my travels, see www.operaduetstravel.com
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