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[Met Performance] CID:351994

New Production

Il Trittico
Il Tabarro
Suor Angelica
Gianni Schicchi
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, April 20, 2007
Broadcast

Debut : Anne-Carolyn Bird, Jack O'Brien, Douglas W. Schmidt, Jess Goldstein, Jules Fisher, Peggy Eisenhauer, Leah Wool, Olga Mykytenko, Donato Di Stefano







Il Tabarro received eight performances this season
Suor Angelica received eight performances this season
Gianni Schicchi received eight performances this season
Broadcast live on Sirius Metropolitan Opera Radio
Streamed live at metopera.org
Production photos of Il Trittico by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

FUNDING:
Production gift of Karen and Kevin Kennedy
Additional funding from the Gramma Fisher Foundation, Marshalltown, Iowa, The Annenberg Foundation, Hermione Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. William R. Miller, M. Beverly and Robert G. Bartner

Review 1:

Review of David J. Baker in the July 2007 issue of OPERA NEWS

The Met's new buzz-worthy "Il Trittico" staging, directed by Jack O'Brien, boasts gorgeous sets by Douglas W. Schmidt.

Few spectators will come away from the new Metropolitan Opera production of Puccini's "Il Trittico" (seen April 20) discussing any controversy or new insight found in Jack O'Brien's capable directing. The buzz is surely all about the gorgeous sets designed by another Broadway veteran, Douglas W. Schmidt. That decor-driven emphasis takes hold before a note of music is heard. The curtain rises in silence - followed by gasps and applause - on the "II Tabarro" set, a fascinating jigsaw of steel, water and concrete against a sky bathed in blood-red sunset. Three more well-applauded sets follow (two of them for "Gianni Schicchi"), stage decors that, far from just framing the action, seem to change and breathe, as the lighting effects by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer play endless tricks with the rich architecture.

Puccini's intensely site-specific trilogy, in fact, invites a pictorial approach. He dramatizes space in these operas: the barge in "Il Tabarro," like the convent of "Suor Angelica," oppresses the heroine. Fittingly, in Schmidt's first set, Notre Dame is barely visible on the distant horizon, situating us in the drab industrial outskirts at the wrong end of the city. The unhappy Suor Angelica calls her convent a place of clemency and pity, but her aunt corrects her penitence- and the first half of the work emphasizes a discipline contrived to strip the individual even of secret desires.

As for the comic "Gianni Schicchi," the setting is itself a stake in the drama: Schicchi steals this very house from the rightful heirs as well as the pretenders, the entire Donati clan. And the city of Florence is treated as a paradise to which the "bumpkin" Schicchi aspires, a place from which criminals can be exiled ("Addio, Firenze"), a place that is symbolically handed over to the lovers, like a lavish wedding gift from Papa Schicchi, in the final tableau. The settings of each of these works become virtual characters.

O'Brien's dramatic approach is objective and unobtrusive. Updating the operas to the period between 1927 and 1959 changes nothing but skirt lengths, except in "Gianni Schicchi," where the '50s outfits add considerably to the fun. With no axe to grind, the director efficiently manipulates props - such as the baby clothing glimpsed early in "Il Tabarro" - and people, though there are lapses.

If "Il Tabarro" ended badly, with Michele struggling to fit the eponymous cape over the head of the murdered, much taller Luigi while some spectators laughed, it was obviously the result of the last-minute replacement of Juan Pons by the under-rehearsed (and shorter) Frederick Burchinal. It would have been helpful, also, if Luigi - the somewhat burly Salvatore Licitra - had been set off better from his fellow stevedores, who are meant to be, and to look, twice his age.

But the major challenge in any "Trittico" production is undoubtedly that saccharine final tableau in Puccini's convent soap. One solution would be a neo-Bayreuth abstraction that finesses the details. O'Brien chooses to play it straight, retaining the child and the Madonna, along with a cross and a piercing gleam of light. Yet despite all this, and the lurching dance steps for the chorus, the scene worked.

The exquisite Barbara Frittoli lacks the histrionic force of a Stratas or Scotto, two of her predecessors in the role here. Yet her sincerity and simplicity - and a vocal performance of incandescent beauty - had a tremendous impact. Her mezza voce effects in early scenes caught the character's longing and remorse, in contrast to her emotional explosion in the confrontation with her aunt. In some roles, Frittoli can seem reticent, even fragile, but here the voice had a forceful ring, without strain, in the high stretches of the finale.

Under James Levine's coloristic, unhurried conducting, the evening offered several exemplary vocal performances. Aside from Frittoli's superb Angelica, there were Licitra as a thrillingly resonant Luigi and young Massimo Giordano, a rising star in his second Met season, as the lithe, lyrical Rinuccio in "Gianni Schicchi."

And three splendid performances were delivered by Stephanie Blythe. The mezzo's warm-hearted Frugola in "Il Tabarro" and her comically overbearing aunt Zita in "Gianni Schicchi" benefited from her rich, rounded timbre and ebullient personality. The stern authority of Via Principessa in "Suor Angelica" came less naturally to her, though here, too, she etched the lines memorably.

Alessandro Corbelli was a droll Schicchi, though on a modest scale in terms of vocal and visual presence. In her house debut, Olga Mykytenko made a real gem of Lauretta's air. Maria Guleghina, in what Puccini called his "apache drama," invested Georgetta's tangled emotions with appropriate intensity, shading her large sound finely in the quieter moments. Guleghina missed only the Mediterranean-flavored "morbidezza" and the clear diction that this composer always wants.

Search by season: 2006-07

Search by title: Il Trittico, Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi,



Met careers

• James Levine [Conductor]
• Maria Guleghina [Giorgetta]
• Salvatore Licitra [Luigi]
• Frederick Burchinal [Michele]
• Stephanie Blythe [Frugola]
• Paul Plishka [Talpa]
• David Cangelosi [Tinca]
• John Nuzzo [Song Seller]
• Anne-Carolyn Bird [Lover]
• Tony Stevenson [Lover]
• Jack O'Brien [Production]
• Douglas W. Schmidt [Set Designer]
• Jess Goldstein [Costume Designer]
• Jules Fisher [Lighting Designer]
• Peggy Eisenhauer [Lighting Designer]
• Barbara Frittoli [Angelica]
• Stephanie Blythe [Princess]
• Heidi Grant Murphy [Genovieffa]
• Sara Wiedt [Osmina]
• Jennifer Check [Dolcina]
• Wendy White [Monitor]
• Patricia Risley [Abbess]
• Barbara Dever [Mistress of Novices]
• Maria Zifchak [Nurse]
• Lisette Oropesa [Lay Sister]
• Edyta Kulczak [Lay Sister]
• Anne-Carolyn Bird [Novice]
• Leah Wool [Novice]
• Jennifer Black [Alms Collector]
• Jane Gilbert [Alms Collector]
• Alessandro Corbelli [Gianni Schicchi]
• Olga Mykytenko [Lauretta]
• Massimo Giordano [Rinuccio]
• Jennifer Check [Nella]
• Patrica Risley [Ciesca]
• Stephanie Blythe [Zita]
• Bernard Fitch [Gherardo]
• Patrick Carfizzi [Betto]
• Jeff Mattsey [Marco]
• Donato Di Stefano [Simone]
• Jacob Wade [Gherardino]
• Paul Plishka [Spinelloccio]
• Dale Travis [Amantio]
• Peter Volpe [Pinellino]
• Keith Miller [Guccio]