Robert Cardona

Mystery tenor from a decidedly post-mystery age. There is no mention of him anywhere, not in the fantastic catalogue of the French National Library, not on discogs.com, not in Kutsch/Riemens, not in Stéphane Wolff's books listing all artists in the history of the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique, not in any available opera theater archives. He just pops up in two complete opera recordings, both times as a comprimario, both times in pretty prominent casts: in 1968, he sang Tybalt to Franco Corelli's and Mirella Freni's Roméo and Juliette; and in 1986, he sang one of the countless tiny roles in Vojna i mir, under Mstislav Rostropovich and with Nicolai Gedda, Nicola Ghiuselev, Lájos Miller, Wiesław Ochman and so on. That a singer chosen for those two recordings, albeit in secondary parts, would never appear in any available newspaper review or opera program, or in any reference work is more than strange. My only explanation is that he must have been a soloist of some chorus; on the other hand again, the voice is certainly far from first-rate and he always botches up the top notes, but for a chorister, it seems like a large voice...