Edgar (Complete Opera)

"there is much to enjoy, especially when the piece gets the right degree of belief and commitment, as it does here. Levi plays the score as if it's top-drawer Puccini, and though the only really star name here is Julia Varady, the rest are in good voice and clearly enjoy their big moments. In fact, this is one of those pieces where it's better not to question what's going on; better let it wash over you and enjoy hearing a young composer at least occasionally hitting the mark. "
MusicWeb

"This new version is collectable for teh astonishingly fresh singing of the great Hungarian soprano Julia Varady."
The Sunday Times

In 1876, the eighteen-year-old Puccini received the revelation of his future career at a performance of Verdi's Aïda. 'And the Lord Almighty touched me with his little finger and said to me: "Write for the Theatre - but , mark me well, gor the theatre alone!". Posterity has not been kind to His first two operas, Le Villi (1883/84) and Edgar (1889), preferring to begin his career with the worldwide success of his third, Manon Lescaut. But it is these very works, great rarities both in the opera house and on record, that Radio France has now chosen to bring to life In concert versions whose splendid casts and burning dramatic conviction are bound to win them the respect of all opera-lovers.

In the tyro composer's first work, the tale of broken lovers promises and ghostly apparitions (the 'Villi' of the title) offers a pretext for several superb numbers for orchestra and chorus, and above all for an astounding tenor aria, the longest Puccini ever wrote, magnificently performed here by the young Venezuelan Aquiles Machado. As for Edgar, whose plot, set in thirteenth-century Flanders, portrays a tenor hero torn between the pure Fidelia and the demonic Tigrana (a medieval Carmen!), it boasts powerfully dramatic ensemble scenes like the 'Requiem' in Act III, and constant melodic inspiration fully worthy of the composer's future lyrical outpourings: heart-stopping moments like the arias for Fidelia, which enable the great Julia Varady to add a further unforgettable character to her gallery of operatic roles - a performance that would suffice in itself to make this recording a mandatory purchase.