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Performed in Italian with English Supertitles
The New Orleans Opera is presenting a complete production of Puccini's three masterful one-act operas. These amazing and varied works, conceived for a single evening's performance, were written for the Metropolitan Opera and premiered there in 1918. To heighten the pleasure for local audiences, all three of Puccini's tales of rage, devout faith, and comic greed have been re-set in New Orleans locales! These masterpieces contain some of Puccini's most celebrated arias:
O mio babbino caro (Johnny Schicchi), Senza mamma (Sister Angelica), and Nulla, Silenzio (The Cloak).
THE CLOAK (Il tabarro)
Barge owner Michele ...Read More
Performed in Italian with English Supertitles
The New Orleans Opera is presenting a complete production of Puccini's three masterful one-act operas. These amazing and varied works, conceived for a single evening's performance, were written for the Metropolitan Opera and premiered there in 1918. To heighten the pleasure for local audiences, all three of Puccini's tales of rage, devout faith, and comic greed have been re-set in New Orleans locales! These masterpieces contain some of Puccini's most celebrated arias:
O mio babbino caro (Johnny Schicchi), Senza mamma (Sister Angelica), and Nulla, Silenzio (The Cloak).
THE CLOAK (Il tabarro)
Barge owner Michele has docked in the Mississippi River in the shadow of the St. Louis Cathedral. Colorful sounds of the French Quarter only highlight the drabness life on the barge as the longshoremen wearily unload their wares. Michele's wife, Giorgetta, has drifted into an affair with the handsome young stevedore, Luigi. She and her lover plan to meet after dark, but Michele intercepts the young man and presents his wife with the body of her lover--wrapped in his cloak!
SISTER ANGELICA (Suor Angelica)
Among the nuns of the Ursuline Convent is the pious Angelica, who, for seven years, has awaited any word of the child whose illegitimate birth condemned her to the life of a penitent. A visit from her harsh and austere aunt, now matriarch of the family, only confirms the worst; the son has died. Believing this to be a sign that her penitence has finally ended, Angelica chooses to take poison brewed from the convent flowers she tends. After taking the poison, Angelica recoils in panic since the mortal sin of suicide could bring her eternal damnation. The miracle in response to her fervent prayers is the sure sign of divine forgiveness as she joins her departed child in Heaven.
JOHNNY SCHICCHI (Gianni Schicchi) (pronounced: Skee-kee)
In this comic masterpiece, a wealthy New Orleanian has just died and his greedy relatives ransack his Pontalba Apartment, frantically looking for his will. They discover that the old man left his mills in Slidell, farms in Houma, oil wells in Chalmette, his Garden District home, in fact, his entire fortune to the local monastery! Desperately, they recruit Gianni Schicchi, who is famed for his cunning, to help regain their lost inheritance. Masquerading as the dead man, Schicchi dictates a new will to the notary. The greedy relatives secretly cajole and bribe Schicchi to get the best possessions for themselves, but Gianni Schicchi arranges for all the inheritance to go to–HIM!
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