Robert Tuggle
Metropolitan Opera Photo
Linked from the Met home page
I just got the sad news that Robert Tuggle, Director of Archives at the Metropolitan Opera since 1982, died yesterday. The Met has a news flash up about this; there are some remembrances of Bob at opera-l and, at Opera Nostalgia, Charles Mintzer has written a memorial as well.
I knew Bob slightly; he was very kind to me when I was actively researching the life and career of Dame Eva Turner, and over the years he'd made some contributions to the accumulated stock of information about her. He traced her career and found 75 performances of Turandot, not the 200 she claimed, for example.
I encountered him first as the author of The Golden Age of Opera, and eventually he signed a copy I gave to a friend of mine. He told me that the bit in the book about the alleged suicide of Claudia Muzio very likely wasn't right; that he had eventually discovered that his source, the Brazilian soprano Bidu Sayao, had not even been in Rome when Muzio died.
He was a lovely man and did an immense amount for opera and the Met, where he worked for nearly his adult life: his decades as archivist were preceded by many years doing education for the Metropolitan Opera Guid. He had been working for a very long time on a biography of Kirsten Flagstad, and like many others I hope it will eventually be published.
RIP, Bob Tuggle. You'll be greatly missed. And deepest condolences to Bob's partner, Paul Jeromack, and to all of Bob's friends and family.
4 comments:
Such a great man! Thank you for shaing this.
Kind regards,
Annika E. Åsen Kirsten Flagstad Museum
Yes, he was, and a lovely person. Thank you for your comments!
The death of Robert Tuggle is an immeasurable loss to all opera lovers! It will impact the continued building of the annals of opera history.
This remarkably fine person was a master of eloquent English and a connoisseur of evolved singing. These powerful abilities have shown through in all Tuggle's skillful professional work.
I am, like him, a great admirer of Kirsten Flagstad's artistic legacy. We had many conversations on that subject.
Over time , he gave me chapters of his Flagstad book to read and comment on. I discovered that not only were his spoken remarks on Flagstad's art eloquent, but his writing about her as well.
We agreed that as huge as the Flagstad voice was, she, a supremely sophisticated musician, applied her expressive powers subtly. (Something confusing, clearly, to many listeners and commentators.)
To avoid a great loss to vocal cultural history, Robert's book needs to be finished! There must be an Alfano (who successfully completed "Turandot") out there to do it.
Thank you for commenting. I don't know what's happening with his book; I also saw an excerpt at one point. I hope it will be published.
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