‘Il trittico’, a wonderful ‘bilbainada’ to commemorate Puccini’s centenary | Culture

Giacomo Puccini’s music always works its magic. We were able to see it in Bilbao, last Saturday, November 23, at the end of Sister Angelicafeaturing Chiara Isotton’s fiery incarnation of the suicidal nun. The young Italian soprano elevated the last fifteen minutes with a beautiful aria Without mother and especially with its stark interpretation of the poisoning and the final prayer. The audience was moved to tears by the miraculous reunion of the nun and her dead son, in a luminous C major, with an ovation that grew louder before the final quadruple piano chord was consumed.

That scene was the last thing Puccini wrote for The triptychan ambitious project that premiered in 1918 and that aspired to terrify, move and make the public laugh in three short operas during the same evening. It started from the adaptation of a tragedy big puppet by Didier Gold entitled The tabard. Later Giovacchino Forzano provided him with the sentimental stained glass window of Sister Angelica and also the macabre comedy Gianni Schicchi about the cunning forger located in the eighth circle of hell of the Comedy of Dante, who really existed and is even said to have defrauded the Donati family, to which Dante’s own wife belonged.

Despite the attraction of experiencing all these sensations in the same function, The triptych is one of Puccini’s least frequented titles. It is more common to see some of its three parts separately and in other companies. At the Teatro Real it was programmed Sister Angelica next to The prisoner of Dallapiccola in 2012, and three years later Gianni Schicchi shared poster with you go by Granados, although it has not been performed in full in Madrid since 1987. The Liceu programmed The triptych in 2022, after 35 years of absence from its stage, albeit in a production imported from the Bavarian Opera. And the Teatro Principal of Palma included it in its last season in a simple production of its own.

ABAO Bilbao Opera has chosen to premiere a new production of The triptych with an interesting Spanish role, both in the stage direction and in the musical direction and the cast, coinciding with the centenary of the composer’s death. Curiously, the presence of the Kings at the function on the 29th has been announced, the date on which it will be exactly one hundred years since Puccini’s death. We are talking about the most expensive production of the season with three sets and a total of twenty-eight solo singers for thirty-seven characters, in addition to the Bilbao Opera Choir and the Navarra Symphony Orchestra. According to the stage director, Paco Azorín, it is an “authentic after” which has involved a month of rehearsals between Bilbao and Pamplona.

The Malaga baritone Carlos Álvarez stood out in the cast, who did a double role playing Michele and Gianni Schicchi, in the first and third parts, as well as in February in Vienna. In fact, it was the best in the distribution of The tabard with a brilliant incarnation of the murderous boatman, who had his most notable moment in the dramatic monologue Nothing! Silence!. The Madrid soprano Ángeles Blancas sang a well-projected Giorgetta, which was joined by the power in the treble of the Italian tenor Marco Berti, as her lover Luigi, although neither of them managed to elevate their character. Among the secondary ones we should highlight the attractive Frugola of the mezzo-soprano Valencian Ana Ibarra, who scored a hat trick by adding La Badessa de Sister Angelica and the Zita of Gianni Schicchi.

Isotton was the undisputed musical center, in Sister Angelica. Below were all the other nuns, including La zia Principessa played by the legendary Karita Mattila. The Finnish soprano, now limited by her vocal condition to secondary roles in mezzo-sopranobegan somewhat untempered in a role that was quite uncomfortable for her vocality, although she found the necessary doses of malevolence and vulnerability with stagecraft. And we cannot forget here the brilliant performance of the Bilbao Opera Choir.

In Gianni Schicchithe cast was more compact and featured Ibarra alongside the veteran Barcelona bassist Stefano Palatchi. The vocal freshness of the Romanian tenor Ioan Hotea stood out, in You are wrong!which we had already heard in The tabard as Amante 2. Álvarez was also a brilliant Gianni Schicchi, as he demonstrated in We run to the notary with that Puccinoan nod to the foxtrot. And the young Navarrese soprano Sofía Esparza, who had sung as Amante 1 in The tabardwas an exquisite Lauretta and received the only interruption for applause at the end of her famous aria Oh my dear father.

Pedro Halffter’s musical direction was quite monotonous and lacking in imagination, although the musical performance of the Navarra Symphony was optimal in the three operas. The Madrid native prioritized clarity from the pit with quite slow tempos. This affected the tension in The tabardwhere those Parisian environments portrayed in the score were not achieved either. The mysticism of Sister Angelica It sounded epidermal, and it was Isotton’s vocal delivery that elevated the end of the opera. The most refined orchestral work was heard in Gianni Schicchialthough it lacked spark and imagination.

On the contrary, Paco Azorín’s stage proposal worked well on a theatrical level. He manager Yeclano places the three operas in 1945, although without altering their original locations. This license does not clash with the dramaturgy, since a common beginning is sought with a child projecting photos and an end with a snapshot adorned with confetti. These extras look like the dead children of Michele and Giorgetta along with that of Suor Angelica and the character of Gerardito in Gianni Schicchi. Azorín completes his set with a rotating platform that resolves the different Parisian and conventual environments, but also adds dynamism to the final comedy. Added to this are video projections and careful lighting by Pedro Chamizo along with the successful costumes by Ana Garay. And the direction of actors stands out especially in Gianni Schicchiwith the addition of an improbable ending, where Buoso Donati is not dead and is associated with the cunning forger.