France Puccini, Il trittico: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Opéra national de Paris / Carlo Rizzi (conductor). Broadcast live from the Opéra Bastille (directed by Mathilde Jobbé-Duval) on 16.5.2025 and available until 16.6.2025. (JPr)
Christopher Loy makes his Paris Opera debut with Puccini’s Il trittico where it has not been seen since 1987. However, this production originated in Salzburg in 2022, and it explains why there is often a single set for each opera since it was designed to fill the Grosses Festspielhaus’s stage. Some of the cast from 2022 were now repeating their roles.
When I last wrote about this trio (triptych!) of one-act operas I posited that ‘Whether Il trittico provides a great night at the opera depends on the individual concerned because two-thirds of the evening (each individual opera lasts a little under an hour) is very downbeat with the lightest of light relief hopefully provided by Gianni Schicchi bringing it all to a close at the end.’ Those last words have my added italics because Loy’s current order is unusual and begins with a joyously comical Schicchi, before the darkly melodramatic Il tabarro and the emotionally overwrought Suor Angelica.
There seems to be no real reason for the three to be performed together, though that is what Puccini wanted and what appears to link them is that each involves a concealed death. It was also how Il trittico was first staged at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1918. Was Puccini’s inspiration waning at that point in his life and maybe he had nothing else to fill an evening. Musicologist Alexandra Wilson has reflected how: ‘Most importantly we need to bear in mind the fact that this was a work in which Puccini was casting a nostalgic and at times ironic eye across his career as a whole. Il tabarro harks back to the gritty Puccini last heard in Tosca, while Suor Angelica elevates the archetypal sentimental Puccini heroine to new heights. Gianni Schicchi, meanwhile, presents a veritable kaleidoscope of different musical styles, some more modern, some deliberately old-fashioned, its lightness of touch recalling the second act of La bohème.’
It is quite common to see just Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi occasionally on their own, or together, or with a different opera. Putting on Il trittico in a single evening presents quite a challenge, because of the trio of quite dissimilar short operas. In Paris this challenge is not only for the director Loy but also soprano Asmik Grigorian who unusually sang (as at Salzburg) in all three as Lauretta (Schicchi), Giorgetta (Tabarro) and Sister Angelica.
Gianni Schicchi is based on an incident mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy and begins as the wealthy Buoso Donati has died and the greedy relatives gathered at his deathbed have heard rumours that all his money is being left to some friars. After this proves true, the lowly born Gianni Schicchi is their only hope. Lauretta, his daughter, is in love with Rinuccio, Buoso’s nephew. Lauretta makes a heartfelt plea (yes, ‘that’ song!) for her father’s help. Schicchi explains they can still alter Buoso’s will and since no one else apparently knows of his death, Schicchi can dress as Buoso, climb into the bed in a darkened room and make any changes before a notary and two witnesses. There are now only minor requests from this ‘Buoso’ to the relatives while everything important is left to … ‘Gianni Schicchi’. After the notary leaves, the relatives riot and set upon Schicchi. However, throughout all of this he has reminded the family how seriously the authorities would view these shenanigans if they were to be found out.
Étienne Pluss (sets) and Barbara Drosihn (costumes) seem to take us into the world of Italian comedy films of the latter part of the twentieth century. A huge – almost bare – room apart from a central bed and the self-seeking relatives, mostly in black, sitting to the side eating spaghetti. There is not much to rummage through when looking for the will or remove at the end when they don’t get what they expected: though the room is ransacked for anything that can be moved including two huge candlesticks. At the end of the opera Schicchi has recovered almost everything that was taken and suggests to the audience that if they have enjoyed themselves, he may be forgiven for his crime in the ‘extenuating circumstances’. Rinuccio and Lauretta – who have stayed with him after everybody else leaves – are under the duvet on the bed.
Il tabarro (The Cloak) is a drama of lust and jealousy and probably the most neglected of the triple bill. All the action should be on a barge moored on the Seine. Bargee Michele is distraught over the loss of his wife’s affection and is still grieving the death of their young son. His wife dreams of escaping her dispiriting life on the barge and embarks – with tragic consequences – on an affair with the stevedore, Luigi. We don’t get an especially Parisian backdrop and no real link to Schicchi apart from the time period it is set in. There is the same three walls as before, now with a large barge on one side and a metal staircase on the other with an all-pervading claustrophobic atmosphere. Michele’s workers are offloading some furnishings onto the streetlamp lit quayside including a standard lamp, chest of drawers, table, chairs and settee, creating something of an odd living room for most of the action to take place in. Tension builds inexorably before a lighted match in all the gloom causes Luigi’s premature arrival for his assignation with Giorgetta which leads to his violent death and being hidden under the cloak which is the opera’s title.
For Suor Angelica we have the three bare walls and a door on the back wall rather as in Gianni Schicchi, though instead of some huge patio doors there is now a small window on high. With just a few tables and chairs and some potted plants to one side it shows us the bustling life of the nuns in the convent where Sister Angelica was sent after the birth of an illegitimate son. As Puccini (and Loy) ratch up the tension towards the powerfully emotional ending, I felt – and expect most of the rest of a watching audience did – emotionally drained and there indeed should be nothing to follow this. Sister Angelica – who would be damned if she took her own life – here gouges her eyes out with scissors and embraces the son she thought dead though can no longer see.
The three – essentially ensemble – operas were sung by a number of obviously accomplished singers with some appearing three times. The tour de force from Asmik Grigorian underlines how she is one of the greatest voices of the twenty-first century. Even if not enough of an ingénue for Lauretta, her ‘O mio babbino caro’ was earnest and appealingly persuasive; she was more at home in the intensity of the blonde, sexually frustrated, if still somewhat grief-stricken Giorgetta who hopes for a happy future with Luigi, ardently and persuasively sung by Joshua Guerrero; and if you see Grigorian sing Sister Angelica’s deeply-moving ‘Senza mamma’ – as she prays to be united with her child she thinks dead – in the Butterfly-like denouement, it is something you will find hard to forget. Most importantly. she is such a convincing actor and fully embraces each character. Indeed, each opera was superbly acted by all concerned.
I would take too long to mention all the singers, suffice to say that in Gianni Schicchi Alexey Neklyudov and Misha Kiria stood out in the experienced ensemble; the former with Rinuccio’s impassioned paean to Florence, ‘Firenze è come un albero fiorito’ and the latter’s Gianni Schicchi as the epitome of opera buffa in putting his supposed betters in their place. As most jealous and heartbroken Micheles in Il tabarro are, I found Roman Burdenko somewhat boorish and one-dimensional – both vocally and dramatically – though this probably is more Puccini’s fault than that of the singer. Again, there was great ensemble singing in Suor Angelica, however there was a major disappointment in the performance of Karita Mattila as an eerily uncaring, suitably haughty Princess who chewed the scenery with a highly histrionic performance from a seemingly different production. Sadly too, her current uneven voice is now a mere shadow of what it was and Mattila’s coolness during the curtain calls suggested a reluctance to pass the soprano baton to Grigorian.
Elsewhere catching the eye and ear was Enkelejda Shkoza in intriguing vignettes as the mercenary Zita, the unhinged La Frugola and the stern Monitress. The cast were an interesting blend of younger talent and veteran singers and amongst the latter how wonderful it was to see and hear the Fricka and Erda from Pierre Boulez’s 1976 Ring, Hanna Schwarz, as the unyielding Abbess.
Everything I heard was of course through loudspeakers, but the Paris Opera Orchestra sounded as if they were on their best form and together nonpareil conductor Carlo Rizzi and his musicians brought scrupulous attention to detail, Puccinian lyricism, rich orchestral colour and atmosphere to each impeccably-paced work; whether it was the high jinks of Gianni Schicchi, heightened passion of Il tabarro, or the (eventual) guilt, solemnity and grief of Suor Angelica.
Jim Pritchard
Featured Image: Paris Opera’s Suor Angelica © Guergana Damianova
Creatives:
Director – Christof Loy
Set design – Étienne Pluss
Costume design – Barbara Drosihn
Lighting design – Fabrice Kebour
Dramaturgy – Yvonne Gebauer
Chorus master – Ching-Lien Wu
Casts:
Gianni Schicchi
Misha Kiria – Gianni Schicchi
Asmik Grigorian – Lauretta
Enkelejda Shkoza – Zita
Alexey Neklyudov – Rinuccio
Dean Power – Gherardo
Lavinia Bini – Nella
Manel Esteve Madrid – Betto
Scott Wilde – Simone
Iurii Samoilov – Marco
Theresa Kronthaler – La Ciesca
Matteo Peirone – Maestro Spinelloccio
Vartan Gabrielian – Pinellino
Luis-Felipe Sousa – Guccio
Alejandro Baliñas Vieites – Amantio di Nicolao
Il tabarro
Roman Burdenko – Michele
Asmik Grigorian – Giorgetta
Joshua Guerrero – Luigi
Andrea Giovannini – Il Tinca (‘Tench’)
Scott Wilde – Il Talpa (‘Mole’)
Enkelejda Shkoza – La Frugola (‘The Rummager’)
Dean Power – Song Seller
Ilanah Lobel-Torres – Lover
Suor Angelica
Asmik Grigorian – Sister Angelica
Karita Mattila – The Princess
Hanna Schwarz – The Abbess
Enkelejda Shkoza – The Monitress
Theresa Kronthaler – The Mistress of the Novices
Margarita Polonskaya – Sister Genovieffa
Ilanah Lobel-Torres – Sister Osmina
Lucia Tumminelli – Sister Dolcina
Maria Warenberg – The Nursing Sister
Lavinia Bini – First Arms Sister
Camille Chopin – Second Arms Sister
Lisa Chaïb-Auriol – A Novice
Silga Tīruma – First Lay Sister
Sophie Van de Woestyne – Second Lay Sister