Puccini: Edgar (Teatro Regio di Torino)

Puccini: Edgar (Teatro Regio di Torino) (2008) is a feature film. Top cast includes José Cura, Amarilli Nizza, and Julia Gertseva. Relationships and emotional turning points shape the core of the story.

Actor: José Cura

Puccini’s operas are among the most beloved and best-known works in the classical repertoire, but Edgar may be unknown even to aficionados, at least as it is presented here. This original four-act version of Edgar, first performed in 1889, was believed lost for over a century when Puccini’s granddaughter Simonetta discovered the score fully intact in 2008. In addition to the third act’s funeral music, which Arturo Toscanini conducted at Puccini’s funeral in 1924, listeners may recognize the duet from the now-restored fourth act, cut by Puccini in subsequent revisions of the work: it bears more than a passing similarity to the third-act duet in Tosca.