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Giacomo PUCCINI (1887-1924) Il Trittico - three one-act operas: Il Tabarro (‘The Cloak’) (1916)
Michele - Alberto
Mastromarino (baritone)
Giorgetta - Amarilli Nizza (soprano)
Luigi - Rubens Pelizzari (tenor) Suor Angelica (‘Sister Angelica’) (1918)
Suor Angelica - Amarilli Nizza (soprano)
La zia principessa - Annamaria Chiuri (alto)
La badessa - Elisa Fortunati (mezzo) Gianni Schicchi (1918)
Gianni Schicchi - Alberto Mastromarino (baritone)
Lauretta - Amarilli Nizza (soprano)
Zita - Annamaria Chiuri (alto)
Rinuccio - Andrea Giovannini (tenr)
Gherardo - Alessandro Cosentino (tenor)
Nella - Tiziana Tramonti (soprano)
Gherardino - Grigorij Filippo Calcagno (soprano)
Notary - Alessandro Busi (baritone)
Coro Lirico Amadeus – Teatro Comunale di Modena
Orchestra della Fondazione Arturo Toscanini/Julian Reynolds
rec. live, Teatro Comunale di Modena, 8 February 2007 TDK DVWW-OPTRIT [180:00]
Puccini was always
adamant in his preference for all three of the one-act operas
that comprise Il trittico to be performed together.
That’s how they are in this 2007 Modena production. From the
start he had recognized the essential synergy of the brilliant
contrasts of melodrama, sentiment and comedy when the trio
is presented as an entity across a single evening. Many producers,
daunted by a very long evening, made even longer by extended
intervals necessary for the changing of very different sets,
have been tempted into splitting and pairing them with other
short operas.
In this Modena
production Amarilli Nizza appears in all three operas; as the
faithless wife Giorgetta in Il tabarro, as Suor Angelica and
as Gianni Schicchi’s daughter Lauretta. Alberto Mastromarino
is the jealous husband, Michele in Il tabarro and as Gianni
Schicchi.
The opening opera, Il
tabarro is a murky tale of jealousy and murder set around
a barge moored on the Seine in the shadow of Notre Dame.
The Modena opera set is imaginative. Notre Dame and Paris
are unseen. Instead Michele’s barge is shown moored beneath
a bridge which dominates the stage with just a portion of
the riverbank in the background. This accentuates the plot’s
claustrophobic atmosphere in which Giorgetta longs to escape
the drudgery of her miserable life by running away from her
older husband. When she does this is only to have him murder
her lover and hide the corpse under his cloak for Giorgetta
to discover in the powerfully dark ending. Nizza’s Giorgetta
is a compelling strumpet, apache-like in dress, showing plenty
of voluptuous leg. Her singing is emotionally compelling
too and she is well matched by Pelizzari’s ardent Luigi.
However it is Mastromarino as the vengeful Michele who steals
this show: tender in his memories of happier times with Giorgetta
and of their baby before it died, and a volcano of anger
and malice towards the errant lovers.
The sweetly sentimental
centre-piece of the triptych, Suor Angelica, was Puccini’s
declared favourite of the three operas. Alas, it is the one
that is most likely to be cut by insensitive producers. Puccini
was especially attracted to the opportunity of writing solely
for female voices. The nuns’ choruses are particularly memorable
and the ladies of the Coro Lirico Amadeus distinguish themselves.
Indeed, this Suor Angelica is the highlight of the triptych.
The fluid Abbey
set, is imposing, its high vaulting tending to dwarf the nuns,
adding a different sense of claustrophobia. It imprisons Sister
Angelica and her colleagues within their duties and devotions.
As Suor Angelica, Amarilli Nizza mesmerizes. This is particularly
true of the purity of her silken legato in “Senza mamma, o
bimbo, tu sei morto!” as she grieves over her illegitimate
baby torn from her when she was condemned to life as a nun.
Later she is just as enthralling in passionate atonement for
committing suicide in her grief-stricken madness. Judging by
her tear-stained face as she takes her curtain calls, Nizza
was emotionally swept away singing Sister Angelica. In contrast
and as the ruthless unforgiving Princess, Annamaria Chiuri,
dressed all in a black and raven-like headdress, is splendidly
chilling.
The action of this
production ofthe final part of the triptych, Gianni Schicchi, is updated from 14th century
Florence to the 19th century. The slapstick
nature of the action has prompted the designer towards caricature
with costumes that make the women, with their hugely extravagant
hairstyles, look like refugee witches from TheWizard
of Oz. Caricature may work well for the grasping, scheming
relatives but not when it is extended to Lauretta and
her lover Rinuccio. Rinuccio looks like some clown and Lauretta
is dressed and made to act like a spoilt little girl. She is
required to sing the show-stopping ‘O mio babbino caro’ simpering
and batting her eyelids as she pleads for Schicchi’s help to
save her love-match, thus completely ruining the pathos of
the aria. Actually Nizza, here in soft, pliant tones, delivers
this aria sweetly – just shut your eyes when it comes. Alberto
Mastromarino’s Gianni Schicchi is a rotund sly rogue. His mordant ‘In
testa la cappellina’ is a delight. In it he mischievously convinces
the doctor, and then the notary, that he is Donati the old
man who has died and whose will causes all, the trouble. Andrea
Giovanni as Rinuccio, Lauretta’s lover, labouring against the
stupidity of his costume, is nobly fervent in his aria in praise
of Florence, ‘Firenze è come un albero fiorito’. Annamaria
Chiuri as Rinuccio’s awful, overpowering, Aunt Zita, is splendidly
snobbish and viper-like. The other relatives solo or in chorus
are equally malevolent and repulsive in action and voice.
This Gianni
Schicchi is the weakest link in this Trittico. Preferable
is the 2004 Glyndebourne production with Alessandro Corbelli
in the title role on Opus
Arte OA0918D.
Praise must be
given to Julian Reynolds for his music direction. He empathises
strongly with Puccini’s Late Romantic idiom, pointing up the
melodrama and the drama. He gives sensitive accompaniments
to the “big” numbers and catches well the Debussy-like river
motif. All the little felicities of Il tabarro are tellingly
done. Listen to the bells of the surrounding Paris churches,
the bugle calls in the distant barracks and the sound, in the
orchestra, as the wife of one of the stevedores sings of her
pet. In the opening pages of Suor Angelica, Reynolds
nicely evokes the peace and tranquillity of the convent, its
fountain and birdsong.
This Il trittico has
much to recommend it. Pity about the production design of GianniSchicchi. Ian Lace
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