Il Trittico at Covent Garden

[BBMmk2]

I love Puccini's operas. I have these in my collection. I will reacquaint myself with them today!

[Barbirollians]

The ROH is a great house . I don't know what Simon is going on about -assuming that he was not being facetious I struggle to see how he can comment on London - let alone the area around Covent Garden with such finality when he did not even know that the fruit and veg market had moved , suggesting a last visit in the 1970s .

The area around Covent Garden is fine and most certainly has never struck me as " dangerous " .

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

My review of last night's Il trittico has just been published: http://www.opera-britannia.com/index...iews&Itemid=16

A really enjoyable trio of productions, no weak links, either dramatcially or musically. I'm not always a fan of Richard Jones, but thought he did a great job here.

[Simon Biazeck]

I'm glad to see this has a good review here. I saw the General Rehearsal and absolutely loved every minute of it - I'm still teary remembering the staging of the end of Suor Angelica which very much caught me out!

[jillfc]

Many thanks, igi: I'm going next Monday and your review has provided valuable reassurance.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

From the BBC website:-

The Royal Opera House season begins with a production of Il Trittico, directed by Richard Jones and broadcast live. Puccini's triple bill comprises three contrasting one act operas encompassing lust, murder, faith, romance and comedy. In Il Tabarro Eva-Maria Westbroek sings Giorgetta whose affair with a deckhand provokes her husband to murder. Then we move to the world of a convent where Suor Angelica sung by Ermonela Jaho has been banished for having an illegitimate child. Both these are new productions. Finally a revival of Richard Jones' production of the farcical comedy where Gianni Schicchi, sung by Lucio Gallo, tricks a grasping family out of its inheritance.

Donald Macleod presents and is joined by Italian opera scholar, Roger Parker. Plus an interview with Elaine Padmore, the outgoing Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House.

Il Tabarro
Michele.....Lucio Gallo (Baritone)
Luigi..... Aleksandrs Antonenko (Tenor)
Tinca..... Alan Oke (Tenor)
Talpa..... Jeremy White (Bass)
Giorgetta.....Eva-Maria Westbroek (Soprano)
Venditore.....Ji-Min Park (Tenor)
Frugola..... Irina Mishura (Mezzo-soprano)
Lovers.....Anna Devin (Soprano)
.....Robert Anthony Gardiner (Tenor)

Suor Angelica
Sister Angelica..... Ermonela Jaho (Soprano)
The Princess.....Anna Larsson (Mezzo-soprano)
The Abbess.....Irina Mishura (Mezzo-soprano)
The Monitress.....Elena Zilio (Mezzo-soprano)
Mistress of the Novices.....Elizabeth Sikora (Mezzo-soprano)
Sister Genovieffa.....Anna Devin (Soprano)
Nursing Sister.....Elizabeth Woollett (Soprano)
Alms Sisters .....Gillian Webster (Soprano)and Kathleen Wilder (Soprano)
Sister Osmina.....Eryl Royle (Soprano)
Sister Dolcina.....Elizabeth Key (Soprano)

Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi.....Lucio Gallo (Baritone)
Lauretta.....Ekaterina Siurina (Soprano)
Rinuccio.....Francesco Demuro (Tenor)
Zita.....Elena Zilio (Mezzo-soprano)
Gherardo.....Alan Oke (Tenor)
Nella..... Rebecca Evans (Soprano)
Betto di Signa..... Jeremy White (Bass)
Simone.....Gwynne Howell (Bass)
Marco.....Robert Poulton (Baritone)
La Ciesca.....Marie Mclaughlin (Soprano)
Spinelloccio.....Henry Waddington (Bass)
Ser Amantio di Nicolao.....Enrico Fissore (Baritone)

Royal Opera House Orchestra
Royal Opera House Chorus
Conductor ..... Antonio Pappano.

[JPJ]

Unforgettable Ermonela Jaho

My review of last night's Il trittico has just been published: http://www.opera-britannia.com/index...iews&Itemid=16

A really enjoyable trio of productions, no weak links, either dramatcially or musically. I'm not always a fan of Richard Jones, but thought he did a great job here.

I too was there on the 12th and I totally agree with your review, Il Grande Inquisitor, and particularly in the case of Ermonela Jaho’s searing and unforgettable Suor Angelica. Sitting greedily at the front of the house, I noticed Pappano himself remaining beside his podium specifically to join the eager plaudits of the audience for her touching and magnificent performance. Some critics, searching for something to criticize, have mentioned the comparative lightness of Miss Jaho’s voice – but so what? cf La Gheorghiu! The utter conviction and courage to act through the music, risking purity for veracity (and succeeding triumphantly) was reminiscent of the integrity of Vickers, no less.

Giving Ermonela Jaho by far the most enthusiastic ovation of the evening, the opening-night house appeared to recognize that a star was born.

[LHC]

I saw this on Wednesday evening and agree with everything IGI has said. A wonderful start to Covent Garden's season.

As others have said, Ermonela Jaho was superb in Suor Angelica. I wonder how long she had to rehearse given that she was a relatively late replacement for Anja Harteros. Much as I would have liked to have seen and heard Harteros in this, Jaho's slender and slight frame added even more poignancy to the scene with Anna Larsson's Principessa (Larsson towered over her).

I must say I thought Richard Jones's production of Suor Angelica was superb, managing to be intensely dramatic and moving while avoiding the sentimentality that this opera is often accused of.

Gianni Schicchi also worked its magic again and, if anything, was even funnier this time round.

I'm very pleased to hear that the productions will be filmed for DVD and Blu-Ray and thus preserved.

[mercia]

photos

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014m38n

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

As others have said, Ermonela Jaho was superb in Suor Angelica. I wonder how long she had to rehearse given that she was a relatively late replacement for Anja Harteros.

It's believed that Harteros 'walked' after the first rehearsal, so Jaho would seem to have been involved from an early stage. There are photos of her in rehearsal in the ROH programme.

Re JPJ's point about the critics mentioning Jaho's voice being a size too small for the role, well, it is a small(er) voice than a Tebaldi, but didn't detract (for me) from her performance at all. I was at the ROH the night she stood in for Netrebko in La Traviata and was bowled over. She thoroughly deserved her opportunity for further performances as Violetta, which I requested I review. Although disappointed by Harteros' withdrawal, I was delighted with the choice of replacement. I think the only other soprano I'd have put forward - and one who does have the role in her repertory - would have been Kristine Opolais after her Butterfly in the summer.

[Belgrove]

Richard Jones has provided the ROH with another high class production that will surely be reprised. The evening is one of sharp contrasts, melodrama, sentiment and broad comedy, and it is successful in each element.

Il Tabarro is musically the least distinctive work. Eva-Maria Westbroek is the Desperate Housewife, and did not sound as comfortable in this role as in her portrayals of Sieglinde (a complimentary role in some respects) and Anna Nicole earlier this year. Lucio Gallo as her brooding husband seemed a little underpowered. The set is a imonumental depiction of a Parisian dock, the lighting of which becomes progressively darker and more threatening as the work progresses to its inevitable conclusion.

Suor Angelica provides the evening's most memorable moments. The set is magnificent, a children's hospital ward run by the nuns. This stirred a long forgotten memory of when I had my tonsils removed as a child, the detail was most evocative. This work could easily become cloyingly pathetic, but Jones proves a coup de theatre at the close. The miracle is of an entirely secular nature which prompts the notion whether all miracles are essentially of this nature. Ermonela Jaho was excellent in the title role, plaudits also for Anna Larsson as the cold hearted Princess. The playing of the ROH orchestra under Antonio Pappano was glorious, the tremolando playing of the strings was wonderfully textured and presaged some of the effects used by Berg.

Lucio Gallo raised his game in Gianni Schicci, swaggering both vocally and in stage presence. Each of the ghastly Donati family is a sharply etched cameo of craven humanity with terrible dress sense. The stage business conjured up by Jones is genuinely comic.

I've not seen (nor heard) the first two of this tryptic before, but found them compelling and involving. Suor Angelica was the highlight of the evening. The musical achievements are of the high quality we expect of a house of international rank and the overall production presents a persuasive account of these deliberately disparate works.

Do try to catch this evening's broadcast.
Now to read what the professional critics think, and see just how wrong I can be.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I was struck by the way several of the 'introducers' (one of them Pappano IIRC) reckoned Suor Angelica was the highlight of the trilogy. Contrast the Pan Book of Opera (1964, Arthur Jacobs & Stanley Sadie): "...the middle opera seems to many to fall below the other two in quality."

I've seen Angelica and Schicchi in very rough amateur performances down here in Cornwall, and absolutely hated Angelica. This had much to do with having lost two children, and being frankly nauseated by the work's sentimentality and emotional exploitation of such a bereavement. Didn't hate it anywhere near as much this evening, but that was probably because I couldn't see it or understand the words

Enjoyed Tabarro more than I expected to. I'm not a great lover of Puccini in general - feel upset by his willingness to torture - nay, his enthusiasm for torturing - his women But that said, I have to acknowledge just how good he was at doing what he did. But my shelves still don't hold a Tosca, and I feel very guilty about liking Turandot...

But I confess to recently acquiring a Butterfly. Purely for study purposes yer honour, I really don't enjoy it at all

[Simon B]

I was struck by the way several of the 'introducers' (one of them Pappano IIRC) reckoned Suor Angelica was the highlight of the trilogy. Contrast the Pan Book of Opera (1964, Arthur Jacobs & Stanley Sadie): "...the middle opera seems to many to fall below the other two in quality."

I reckon that they might have been reacting to this particular production and cast.

Both the music (to a degree) and particularly the scenario/libretto can seem hopelessly sentimental, perhaps nauseatingly so under the wrong circumstances. However, on this occasion...

I was wedged into one of the "cheap" seats on the side at Covent Garden last night, with the attendant view of about 2/3rds of the stage. That was enough for me - the whole evening was excellent, but Suor Angelica, well... My embarassment at needing to dry my eyes at the end was tempered by people around me being in floods. Contemplating Puccini's facility for shameless emotional manipulation of his audience, and his rather, er, extraordinary propensity for visiting cruelty on female characters was best left to the cold light of day.

[Mandryka]

Saw it last night. Although I'd seen the Gianni Schichi before, the production seemed to have 'grown' in the two years since it joined the repertoire. Is this the only 'comic' opera that is genuinely funny? I reckon so.

Of the other two, Il Tabarro was done comparatively 'straight' and I preferred Jones's ending to Suor Angelica to the one specified in the libretto (and kept wondering how they were going to achieve the climax, given the relative naturalism of the production).

All in all, a very satisfactory evening, though the fact that the three operas seem to completely unrelated to each other did bother me for some obscure reason.

[Flosshilde]

The ROH is a great house . I don't know what Simon is going on about -assuming that he was not being facetious I struggle to see how he can comment on London - let alone the area around Covent Garden with such finality when he did not even know that the fruit and veg market had moved , suggesting a last visit in the 1970s .

The area around Covent Garden is fine and most certainly has never struck me as " dangerous " .

Well, Simon does like to play up his 'hermit' image - perhaps he's deliberately demonstrating the appropriateness of the 'Sage of Kiiiiiii' appelation? Although this quotation from 1828 might support Simon's view -
"The notoriety of Covent Garden is of too multifarious a description to render the above illustration uninteresting to either of our readers. It is copied from one of Hollar's prints, and represents the Garden about the time of Charles II., before its area had been polluted with filth and vegetable odours. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11408...-h/11408-h.htm


When the market moved, & there was a campaign to save the old market buildings, I thought that it would be a much better idea to demolish them & return the square to a garden, as it hade been originally. London desperately needs an open green space in that area (the nearest, I think, is in Soho) (excluding St Paul's Covent Garden burial ground).