Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini: Edward II – Thomas Sondergard

   in Opera Now (Mar, 2018)
The story of Edward II should be an operatic gift to any librettist and composer; a highly trained and educated prince, he became king in 1307, then spent the next 20 years lurching from one disaster to another until he was presumably dispatched, disappearing into the gloom of Berkeley Castle never to be seen again. Add that he may well have been gay, had an obviously close relationship with favourite, Piers Gaveston; he also married a feisty princess, Isabella, who became known as the She- Wolf of France and had her own ambitious lover, Roger Mortimer. Myth has Edward murdered by being sodomised with a hot poker. Quite how such a …