Puccini: Il Trittico Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Puccini: Il Trittico Blu-ray Movie Review

Three for the price of one.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 8, 2012

Critics and analysts have spent untold time and energy trying to come to terms with Il Trittico, Giacomo Puccini’s then revolutionary grouping of three one-act mini-operas into one evening of decidedly different entertainment. The idea of grouping one-act pieces together wasn’t entirely innovative, as the legendary pairing of Cavellaria Rusticana and Pagliacci had been an operatic staple for several decades by the time that Puccini’s “musical triptych” premiered in December of 1918. But what was Puccini trying to achieve by grouping these three pieces together, especially since the first two were definitely on the tragic side while the third was more of an outright farce? There’s little doubt that in fact it was actually Cavellaria Rusticana which sparked an interest in Puccini in attempting to craft his own one-act, but initially at least it seems that he was planning on adapting Dante’s Divine Comedy into operatic form. But the three one-acts that did end up forming Il Trittico are a rather dysfunctional musical “family” as it were, with a brooding and violent opening, a meditative and disturbingly sad middle element and then some buffoonery evoking at least a little of the spirit of Commedia dell’Arte in the final act. This 2011 Royal Opera House production was conducted by Puccini interpreter extraordinaire Antonio Pappano, and in some really neatly informative introductions to each of the one acts included on this Blu-ray, Pappano makes the case that the unifying element in the operas is deception, which may or may not “solve” the quandary that has had numerous musicologists and historians scratching their collective heads for most of the last century or so. It’s notable that despite Puccini’s ardent wishes—even insistence—that the three units making up Il Trittico be performed together, the more typical contemporary practice is to isolate at least two of the one-acts into their own Puccini-esque “Cav/Pag, or to see Gianni Schicchi all by its lonesome. Frequently one of the three one-acts is paired with a piece by a completely different composer, as if to suggest, “Hey, these pieces don’t fit together, so why even try?”

Director Richard Jones had in fact separated Gianni Schicchi, the ebullient farce that typically brings up Il Trittico’s rear, and paired it with Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnol for Covent Garden in 2007. That production is revived here, along with Jones’ newer takes on the first two Puccini pieces. The results are largely laudatory, with some “reimaginings” that may strike some ardent Puccini-philes as sacrilegious (no pun intended, considering the changes made to Suor Angelica), but which invest Il Trittico with some new life. There’s obviously been a lot of thought devoted to these interpretation, and if Il Tabarro can’t quite escape its inherent smarminess, Gianni Schicchi is still a relentless piece of low comedy and Suor Angelica reveals a few new glimmers that manage to divorce it from its tendency to be overly treacly and kind of bothersome for those immune to Catholic symbolism.

For those not overly familiar with Il Trittico brief overviews of the plots of the three one-acts of the triptych can be found in my review of the previously released production by Teatro Comunale di Modena. Despite the now common reassignment of timeframes to the mid-20th century, Jones’ most striking revisionism comes in Suor Angelica. This middle piece was evidently Puccini’s own favorite of the three, no doubt due to his overweening religiosity which finds a perfect, if horribly tragic, outlet in the story of a nun with a horrible secret she’s been hiding. Instead of setting the opera in the more typical convent, Jones rather smartly places it in a children’s infirmary where Angelica is an attending nurse and herbalist. This obviously focuses the central tragedy of the piece with a more or less constant onstage reminder of Angelica’s “sin”. Some may find it too visually declamatory, but it actually removes at least some of the overt religious symbolism that many find so problematic in Suor Angelica.

The casting here is for the most part quite well done, with a few minor qualms. Lucio Gallo doesn’t quite have the menacing gravitas necessary for Il Tabarro’s Michele, though he does a better in the title role of Gianni Schicchi, bringing a more unexpectedly serious tone to his interpretation there than the source material might indicate. Eva-Maria Westbroek makes a mostly fine Giorgetta, though she sounds just the tiniest bit hoarse or tired at times. Suor Angelica’s title role is sung by Ermonela Jaho, who is appropriately frail and winsome, but who struggles at times to be heard over Puccini’s declamatory string writing. The two real stars here are Jones, who so nicely invests this Il Trittico with energy and nuance, if still not quite managing to weave together a coherent through line, and Pappano, who continues to conduct Puccini as if his life depended on it. The sets and costumes are also quite evocative (each one-act was done by a different design team, further adding to the fractious feeling of Il Trittico in general), with Suor Angelica’s soaring hospital atrium a real standout.

Puccini: Il Trittico Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Il Trittico is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Opus Arte with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This high definition presentation struggles just a bit with the darkness of Il Tabarro, where shadow detail is often negligible and some kind of murky contrast presents fine object detail from ever really totally popping, but the other two acts more than make up for this admittedly minor qualm. Suor Angelica is strangely and anachronistically light and bright, with whites crisp and finely detailed and some pale pastels adding a cool ambience to the proceedings. Gianni Schicchi is undoubtedly the most colorful of the three presentations, with eye popping costumes and sets. Generally speaking this presentation offers a very nicely sharp and well detailed image, with accurate and nicely saturated color.

Puccini: Il Trittico Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Il Trittico follows the typical Opus Arte tradition of having two audio mixes, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround offering and an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down. The music here sounds absolutely magnificent, with fantastic clarity and precision. Pappano is rapidly becoming one of my favorite Puccini conductors, able to finesse the composer's incredibly emotional sensibilities without ever jumping the veritable sonic shark into self-parody. There are some niggling balance concerns to note here, mostly with Suor Angelica, where Jaho is just momentarily subsumed by the orchestral masses a time or two. The surround mix makes very evocative use of the side channels with some of the offstage choral singing in Suor Angelica, however. Fidelity is very strong in this presentation, as is dynamic range.

Puccini: Il Trittico Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction to Puccini's Il Trittico and Il Tabarro (1080i; 4:41) is a brief but informative overview of the opera and this segment by the piece's musical director Antonio Pappano. Pappano talks about deception being the unifying idea behind all three mini-operas.


• Introduction to Suor Angelica (1080i; 3:26) finds Pappano discussing the lyrical elements of this piece, Puccini's personal favorite in this "musical triptych".


• Introduction to Gianni Schicchi (1080; 1:45) is described by Pappano as a "bite sized masterpiece with an hysterical libretto."


• Extra Feature (1080i; 9:39) doesn't exactly bear the most creative name for a supplement, but it's an interesting enough backstage look at Il Trittico hosted by Lucio Gallo. We are privy to his rather involved make up session as well.

Puccini: Il Trittico Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Il Trittico may in fact be an at least partially failed experiment, but it still contains some of Puccini's most ineffably gorgeous music. How can you argue with a piece that includes "O mio babbino caro"? This production is at once smart and emotionally accessible. Yes, there are still problems, notably with a kind of static Il Tabarro, and some may find Jones' revisionism vis a vis Suor Angelica to be an issue, but overall this is a wonderfully engaging mounting of Puccini's "little" one-acts. The physical production here is largely impeccable, and Pappano leads the Royal Opera House Orchestra and Chorus in a thoughtful but visceral reading of the score. The Pappano introductions to the three one-acts are an unexpected but appreciated bonus. They're quite brief, but packed with information. Recommended.