Scottish Opera Puccini's Il trittico The Festival Theatre Edinburgh 22nd March 2023 Review
Scottish Opera Puccini’s Il Trittico is at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh this week (Wed 22 to Sat 25 Mar 2023) and this is an opportunity to hear in one evening the three one act operas – “Il Tabarro”, “Suor Angelica” and “Gianni Schicchi”. Sadly, since Puccini’s original vision for an operatic triptych these works have over the years often been split up (“Suor Angelica” often omitted), or simply added on to fill in programmes with other composers’ works. Here, however, performed together in their correct order as a triptych, it is easy to see how at first glance these three very different and apparently unconnected works are actually tightly woven together, not by story, but by the range of human emotions that they cover as each work unfolds and somehow flows into the next one.
This is a new co-production between Scottish Opera and Welsh National Orchestra and is the first “Il Trittico” by director Sir David McVicar. To bring one opera, never mind three operas with very different sets, to life on stage is never going to be an easy task, but here everything seems to have just come together perfectly with very good set design (Charles Edwards), costume design (Hannah Clark), lighting design (Ben Pickersgill) and of course the on-stage cast. The interesting choice by Sir David McVicar to set these three operas 20 years apart from each other also works so well here.
As Puccini intended, every opera is different both musically, emotionally and of course narrative wise. Puccini often worked with different writers for the librettos of his operas and they too must have their credit here – “Il Tabarro” (Giuseppe Adami), “Suor Angelica” (Giovacchino Forzano), and “Gianni Schicchi” (Giovacchino Forzano). These three works all have very different source materials from which they are drawn too, but the one constant source of creativity is Giacomo Puccini and his ability to not only write music which could constantly change, constantly innovate, but always express human emotions and touch people’s hearts.
The emotions, passions and inner fears of people will always make a great story as we all will identify with the characters on some level at least, and Puccini knew this so well when he infused all of this into his music, but what made many of his works so special is that they were so often not stories of the rich and the powerful, they were not full of pomp and grandeur, but so many times were the stories of everyday people struggling to find a way to make their way and make a living in their lives. In doing this Puccini was often writing realistic lives of ordinary people in his “kitchen sink dramas” long before the term was applied to films in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The first opera “Il Tabarro” is a fine example of Puccini’s gritty realism as our story takes us to people on the wrong side of fortune and here in the 1930s, the harsh life of living on a working barge on the river Seine in Paris and the equally hard life of being a stevedore loading and unloading its cargo. This is the life that barge owner Michele (Roland Wood) is used to, but his wife Giorgetta (Sunyoung Seo) is used to life in a large town and finds the confined spaces she is now living in claustrophobic. With a failing marriage and a dangerous passion for one of the workers, Luigi (Viktor Antipenko), emotions soon take everyone’s lives in unexpected directions as built up tensions erupt. Much of this tension is of course in that eternal triangle, and set against the dark landscape of this story, we get very emotive performances from all three plus some lovely character performances from everyone else.
In sharp contrast to the darkness of “Il Tabarro”, “Suor Angelica” is set in the brightness of a religious order of nuns living in a convent in the 1950s, and this time, Sunyoung Seo gives a very different but equally emotive performance as Sister Angelica, a young woman who has been placed there by her wealthy family as penance for her perceived transgressions.
“Suor Angelica” is always an odd work to me, as at one level we have this beautiful music by Puccini which is at times calm, almost serene, but underneath all of this beauty, this story is even darker than “Il Tabarro” and the emotional cruelty with which Angelica’s family and some fellow nuns treat her leaves much to be desired. The lack of support that Angelica gets from many people around her in time of her greatest need leads her to make choices that even she regrets all too late.
By contrast to everything that has come before, “Gianni Schicchi” is a wonderful comedy about greed and a family fighting over the spoils of a rich relative’s will. To make this story even more interesting the choice to set this last work in 1970s Florence sets wonderfully bright colour and costume design together in an almost chaotic fashion that reflects the chaos of a family trying to save their future fortunes no matter what it takes to achieve their goals.
Often, transferring a work into a different time period (and Puccini had already done this himself here) does not work that well, but here the narrative and the humour are so sharp that the transition in time is seamless. Human greed it seems is the same no matter which century you set the story in. Then of course, once again, Puccini’s skill at being able to write music to match the story was also evident here. A highlight for many people this evening would have been the performance here of the ever popular “O mio babbino caro” sung by Francesca Chiejina as Gianni Schicchi’s daughter Lauretta.
For many reasons, this last one was my favourite for the evening, but the main reasons are that this was simply a very funny, very sharp comedy with wonderful dialogue, music and great character performances from everyone on stage.
With three operas there is just not time here to mention everyone, but this triptych is a collaborative effort by many people on and off stage and there are no weak links here. As always, a fine performance from the orchestra of Scottish Opera brought the music of Puccini to us all this evening.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artreviewsedinburgh.com
This is a new co-production between Scottish Opera and Welsh National Orchestra and is the first “Il Trittico” by director Sir David McVicar. To bring one opera, never mind three operas with very different sets, to life on stage is never going to be an easy task, but here everything seems to have just come together perfectly with very good set design (Charles Edwards), costume design (Hannah Clark), lighting design (Ben Pickersgill) and of course the on-stage cast. The interesting choice by Sir David McVicar to set these three operas 20 years apart from each other also works so well here.
As Puccini intended, every opera is different both musically, emotionally and of course narrative wise. Puccini often worked with different writers for the librettos of his operas and they too must have their credit here – “Il Tabarro” (Giuseppe Adami), “Suor Angelica” (Giovacchino Forzano), and “Gianni Schicchi” (Giovacchino Forzano). These three works all have very different source materials from which they are drawn too, but the one constant source of creativity is Giacomo Puccini and his ability to not only write music which could constantly change, constantly innovate, but always express human emotions and touch people’s hearts.
The emotions, passions and inner fears of people will always make a great story as we all will identify with the characters on some level at least, and Puccini knew this so well when he infused all of this into his music, but what made many of his works so special is that they were so often not stories of the rich and the powerful, they were not full of pomp and grandeur, but so many times were the stories of everyday people struggling to find a way to make their way and make a living in their lives. In doing this Puccini was often writing realistic lives of ordinary people in his “kitchen sink dramas” long before the term was applied to films in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The first opera “Il Tabarro” is a fine example of Puccini’s gritty realism as our story takes us to people on the wrong side of fortune and here in the 1930s, the harsh life of living on a working barge on the river Seine in Paris and the equally hard life of being a stevedore loading and unloading its cargo. This is the life that barge owner Michele (Roland Wood) is used to, but his wife Giorgetta (Sunyoung Seo) is used to life in a large town and finds the confined spaces she is now living in claustrophobic. With a failing marriage and a dangerous passion for one of the workers, Luigi (Viktor Antipenko), emotions soon take everyone’s lives in unexpected directions as built up tensions erupt. Much of this tension is of course in that eternal triangle, and set against the dark landscape of this story, we get very emotive performances from all three plus some lovely character performances from everyone else.
In sharp contrast to the darkness of “Il Tabarro”, “Suor Angelica” is set in the brightness of a religious order of nuns living in a convent in the 1950s, and this time, Sunyoung Seo gives a very different but equally emotive performance as Sister Angelica, a young woman who has been placed there by her wealthy family as penance for her perceived transgressions.
“Suor Angelica” is always an odd work to me, as at one level we have this beautiful music by Puccini which is at times calm, almost serene, but underneath all of this beauty, this story is even darker than “Il Tabarro” and the emotional cruelty with which Angelica’s family and some fellow nuns treat her leaves much to be desired. The lack of support that Angelica gets from many people around her in time of her greatest need leads her to make choices that even she regrets all too late.
By contrast to everything that has come before, “Gianni Schicchi” is a wonderful comedy about greed and a family fighting over the spoils of a rich relative’s will. To make this story even more interesting the choice to set this last work in 1970s Florence sets wonderfully bright colour and costume design together in an almost chaotic fashion that reflects the chaos of a family trying to save their future fortunes no matter what it takes to achieve their goals.
Often, transferring a work into a different time period (and Puccini had already done this himself here) does not work that well, but here the narrative and the humour are so sharp that the transition in time is seamless. Human greed it seems is the same no matter which century you set the story in. Then of course, once again, Puccini’s skill at being able to write music to match the story was also evident here. A highlight for many people this evening would have been the performance here of the ever popular “O mio babbino caro” sung by Francesca Chiejina as Gianni Schicchi’s daughter Lauretta.
For many reasons, this last one was my favourite for the evening, but the main reasons are that this was simply a very funny, very sharp comedy with wonderful dialogue, music and great character performances from everyone on stage.
With three operas there is just not time here to mention everyone, but this triptych is a collaborative effort by many people on and off stage and there are no weak links here. As always, a fine performance from the orchestra of Scottish Opera brought the music of Puccini to us all this evening.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artreviewsedinburgh.com