UR musicologist revives 'Edgar'

Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) has been praised, admired, loved, scorned, misunderstood, occasionally highly criticized and, at other times, lauded with the highest of laurels.

And then there's "Edgar."

This first operatic endeavor in 1889 was to be Puccini's hurdle into the footsteps of Giuseppe Verdi as Italy's next great operatic composer of the late 19th century. Not so fast there, Puccy. Bulletin . . . no one liked it!

Heck, as it turns out - depending on whom you talk to - neither did Puccini. He took out the second act and revised it and literally threw away the finale of the four-act piece. He waited for his head to clear, created a couple of crowd pleasers called "Manon Lescaut" and "La bohème" and, while working on "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly," decided to resuscitate "Edgar." To no specific avail, unfortunately.

Enter Linda Fairtile, head of the Parsons Music Library at the University of Richmond.

Fairtile's career description is that of a musicologist. In simple terms, if you have a question about music, just ask her and she can probably nail the answer. But it's much more complex than that, especially where Puccini is concerned.

"I saw the first live telecast from the Met of 'La bohème' when I was in eighth grade, and I was hooked," Fairtile said. "I knew I wanted to do something in opera."

She went to Oberlin Conservatory and later obtained her doctorate in musicology from New York University, writing her dissertation on Puccini's operatic revisions. Through friends and colleagues she met along the way, she also got to know some people from Milan, Italy-based publishing company Ricordi. When the time came for Ricordi, which had been Puccini's benefactor, to resurrect "Edgar," Fairtile was asked to take on the job.

"Ricordi had done a number of critical editions by various composers through the years, but they chose me to do a thorough critical edition of 'Edgar' containing all the variants and different versions which could be used by scholars and performers and really see the history of the document," Fairtile said. "They wanted it 'filled out,' as it were."

The only existing components were acts one and three. Two and four had disappeared, some scholars suggesting that Puccini had made so many changes on the original score that he had thrown them away, or that they had been lost during World War I.

"All Ricordi had was a piano score for the entire piece and the first and third orchestrated acts," Fairtile said. "So basically they handed me everything and said to clean it up and give them four orchestrated acts that could be performed.

"I thought: 'Wow. This is pretty big. Presuming I could think like Puccini and orchestrate his music was a heavy assignment.' But I assumed the challenge because I knew I could orchestrate. The big question was could I do it justice the way Puccini would have wanted it?"

In 2002, Fairtile obtained copies of the two orchestrated acts and piano copies of the two missing acts. After she completed her work in November 2007, it was learned that Puccini's granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini, had the two acts that were once thought lost.

Even though she had her finished reversion of the score, Fairtile took the previously missing acts two and four and compared them with the ones she had completed based on Puccini's piano scripts.

"I was able to tweak some things that I had changed and some things Puccini had changed, which was difficult," Fairtile said. "Puccini - I had discovered from his original scores for acts one and three - made all of his revisions on the original score. This was probably one of the hardest things about the entire project . . . knowing which of the revisions contained in his original score were the final ones in his mind."

Once Ricordi had what it considered to be a mountable production, thanks to Fairtile's five years of work, rehearsals began in early 2008 - the 150th anniversary year of Puccini's birth - with a performance scheduled in late June at the Teatro Regio, the leading opera house in Turin, Italy.

Fairtile participated in a roundtable discussion before the opening performance that included the conductor, Yoram David, Puccini's granddaughter Simonetta and other musical scholars.

How did Fairtile feel after seeing the performance? "It went by too fast. Five years of my work was condensed into two hours.

"First of all, it was a shock to see and hear something that prior to that time existed only in my head and on paper. It was wonderful to realize that these other people in attendance now knew this music that only I knew before this presentation. I wasn't disappointed at all. And from the critiques I heard and read, it was a success.

"Modern audiences have had so many more experiences than audiences of the late 19th century and have so much with which to compare them," Fairtile said. "Since it was very early Puccini, people understood that it was kind of a museum piece. But the most interesting thing was that you could hear elements of his later style in this piece. A little bit of 'Tosca,' a little bit of 'La bohème,' a little bit of 'Madama Butterfly.'

The performance was broadcast live on Italian radio and streamed on the Internet. It also was taped for possible DVD release in the future.

"For me this project was definitely time well-spent," Fairtile said. "The saga of digging underneath what Puccini was attempting to do and then seeing his original scoring was challenging but fun. And to contribute to its rediscovery was very important and fulfilling to me."

Contact Walt Amacker at (804) 649-6247 or wamacker@timesdispatch.com.