Opera Zuid 2007 tour of Holland. The idea behind the production followed one of progression through the trilogy of one-act operas. Firstly, a spiritual one following the parallel of themes within Dante’s Divine Comedy. Secondly, a progression through the 20th century. Il Tabarro referencing the Inferno or Hellish world, was set on a subterranean dockside in 1910. Suor Angelica, referencing Purgatory, was set in a convent courtyard around 1950. Gianni Schicchi ironically referenced Paradise and was set on the rooftop retreat of Buoso Donati’s boarded-up home at the turn of the new millennium,1999. The theme of Death and its legacy, or effect on the living, is explored in all three pieces.

The Hellish world of Il Tabarro, based on a French melodrama, is set in Paris on a barge on the river Seine, just before the First World War. I had previously directed this piece on its own for WNO and so this experience was my starting point for a production idea of progression: for Il Trittico to span the twentieth and ‘deathliest’ century in European history, while referring to the map of Dante’s timeless spiritual landscape.

The middle section or panel of a triptych is also typically most important to the whole idea. In Dante, Il Purgatorio is arguably the most lyrical and human section of the Divine Comedy. The devised Suor Angelica, despite criticisms levelled against it, remained Puccini’s preferred of the three operas. In this regard, I think Suor Angelica is an appeal to examine one’s perceptions of reality and belief. I see it as the slow, meditative movement of the three, concerned with the idea of surrender. Set in a convent, it raises questions about religious dogma and faith. How do we choose to live, in or outside society, in the face of Death? How do we find hope and how do we approach Death, the leveller of accounts?

With Suor Angelica I was also interested in the psychological distinction between pathology and spiritual experience – a quality of perception that heightens the significance of what to some are everyday occurrences and to others deeply meaningful. When is this perception and meditation dysfunctional and when is it empowering? I thought it would be intriguing to set this opera just after the end of the Second World War; Angelica’s years of enforced repentance in a convent the result of a dangerous liaison at a time of volatile uncertainty.

Moving on to the last of the three operas following the Dante parallel, Gianni Schicchi and Il Paradiso.

The classical form of ‘Comedy’ is often quoted to be about the struggle between the society of youth and society of the old. Typically ‘Comedy’ expounds a doctrine of providential will that orders all things towards ultimate good. I would argue that in Gianni Schicchi this allies with human genius and creativity while rejecting religious dogma (the monks are cheated out of Buoso’s legacy). I have set it at the end of the 20th century as a time of cynical religious rejection and extremism, yet poised at the threshold of new hope and a new millennium. The place: Buoso Donati’s rooftop retreat from the cloying world, which is invaded by his money-grabbing relatives.

Throughout the trilogy of operas there are those that aspire to rebel against and cheat the laws of the reality they inhabit and to defy the confines of their time: Giorgetta longs to escape her life on the barge, Angelica longs to be reunited with her child and for release from her suffering, the Donati family hopes to illegally change Buoso’s Will for their own gain and Schicchi executes a genius plan to ‘defy eternity’ and change his destiny in the afterlife, as described by Dante.

In the epilogue to Gianni Schicchi, which also serves as an epilogue to the entire trilogy, Schicchi addresses an appeal to the audience. They are a force outside the world of the stage but it is they who infuse it with meaning. The protagonist is transformed from sinner to lovable rogue by inventing an altruistic motive for the fraud he commits (Lauretta and Rinuccio’s future happiness). His defiance of religious dogma and ‘universal’ law condemns him to Dante’s Inferno. However, the audience is given power of clemency. How do we judge those who confront their own mortality? What are our attitudes towards Death? How do we choose to live as a result of them, in this Age as in any other? These are some of the questions that have arisen in the making of this production - as well as having a lot of fun!

Click for youtube clip of Gianni Schicchi.

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