Notwithstanding many serious shortcomings, Edgar, as a lyric drama, contains much that is sincere and appropriate. It was not a success on its first representation, and the blame was laid for the most part on the libretto. Seeing, however, in the history of opera how many a worse book has passed muster, it is a little curious that Puccini's second work should have been so completely laid on the shelf. It is not the lack of dramatic qualities that make the story of Edgar a poor one; it is rather that the story, as a play, does not contain enough of characterisation to really retain the interest. In spite of the weak third act, with its supposed dead body, and the hero in disguise, the music of this section, both from its wealth of melody, its treatment, and above all its powerful expressive qualities, stands as the best in the work. A finer or more moving scene than that of Fidelia's farewell is hardly to be found in the whole range of what may be termed modern opera. Taken as it stands Edgar proved that Puccini had emphatically progressed beyond his achievement of Le Villi. Amid the sweet notes of love there come strong and virile expressions of anger, tumult and indignation, but the main theme is kept clearly to the front with all that force that stands as the leading characteristic of Italian opera, old or new—definite and direct vocal expression.
Puccini himself had, and still has by all accounts, a very warm affection for this Edgar of his; and it is not at all unlikely that a revised version may be seen in the near future. Indeed, as it stands, it might very well be permitted the test of a revival.
[VI]
"MANON"
Auber was the first opera-composer to be attracted by the Abbé Prévost's famous romance Manon Lescaut. It is one of those vivid stories of love and passion which have ever made an appeal to those in search of a theme for musical expression. As drama it has a very close connection with life in general, and its human interest has that full flesh-and-blood quality which gives it a certain quick vitality. Sad and sordid it may be; but the story of the wayward Manon, as fascinating a black sheep as ever graced the pages of fiction—or history—is one which is likely to remain in the common stock of tales which provides novelists with material for practically all time.
PUCCINI'S MANUSCRIPT SCORES, FROM THE SECOND ACT OF "TOSCA"
The chief romances of the Abbé are the Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité, Cleveland, and Doyen de Killerine (the two latter, by the way, books which show the result of his sojourn in England). While these exhibit certain well-marked qualities, they are completely cast into the shade by Manon Lescaut, his masterpiece, and one of the greatest novels of the eighteenth century, while, from its characterisation, it may be pointed to as the father of the modern novel. The Chevalier des Grieux is an embodiment of the saying "Love first and the rest nowhere," and it is curious that the Abbé made a French translation of Dryden's once famous play on the same theme, All for Love. Manon, as a creation, is a triumph, one of the most remarkable heroines in fiction, springing red-hot as it were from the imagination of the wandering scholar who brought her into existence. It is all the more extraordinary that the novel which at once makes an appeal by its interest and sincerity, but which repays study as a work of art, should have been a sort of appendix to his first work.
Some years after Auber's opera had been laid on the shelf—it never attained to any great popularity—Massenet, a notable "modern" French composer, found by means of its story the expression of quite the best that was in him. Since Carmen modern French opera has no such masterpiece of its kind to show. Massenet's Manon was produced in 1884, and in the fulness of time Puccini turned to the same story, and after planning his own scenario, commissioned Domenico Oliva—dramatic critic of the Journal d'Italia of Rome, and author of a play Robespierre which had attained no little success—to write the "book." This was afterwards so drastically altered and remodelled by Puccini, in consultation with Ricordi, the publisher, that in justice to Oliva, his name as the author of the libretto was removed from the published score.