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5.0 out of 5 stars
Tragic Facts Much Stranger Than Fiction, Jun 29 2004
We are all acquainted with the familiar chestnut: 'truth is stranger than fiction'. The tragic story of Emmeline Mosher (the real Emmeline spelt her name with a single m) is complete truth, and truth does not get much stranger than this. Emmeline's tale begins commonly enough: the oft told, well-worn story of a poor, naive country girl come to the city to find honest work, and in the process is seduced. Emmeline's seduction is especially poignant, as she has honest feelings, though they be confused, for her seducer, a much older man of much higher status, who plays on Emmeline's feelings to his advantage. Emmeline becomes 'with child', flees back to her home in shame, gives up her baby, and is forced to endure the guilt and sorrow of this event every long, empty day of her life. Until ~ one day, a stranger arrives to town. They meet, and there is an immediate, electric bond which deepens quickly into love. The two marry, and all seems well enough until Emmeline arrives to a shocking realisation. Whom she has married is indeed her own illegitimate son, the baby she gave away years ago, the product of her seduction. Certainly all of this sounds bluely lurid, fodder for the 'Daily Mirror' or worse, but Miss Rossner's ('Looking for Mr Goodbar') prose stands up to the plotline unflinchingly and carries it through. Rossner tells the tale the only way it might be told successfully: straight up, without flourish. These were real people, with real flaws, and here they are, in front of you, unvarnished. Such an unimaginable twist of circumstance incurred results. After Emmeline's disasterous marriage ended, she became a complete outcast, living on the fringes of her community, unvisited, alone, ekeing out a subsistance through her garden and her chickens. But her singular story lives on, in word and through music. For its 40th anniversary season in 1996, the Santa Fe Opera presented the world premiere performances of Tobias Picker's first opera, 'Emmeline', which is based on Emeline Mosher's remarkable story, with its true-to-life undertones of the Oedipus legend.
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