Puccini’s Il Trittico : A Short Guide To A Great Opera

Thee one-act operas are combined in Puccini's Il Trittico, ‘The Triptych'which was premiered in 1918 at The Metropolitan Opera House, New York.The uproariously funny Gianni Schicchi, about a character referred to in Dante's The Divine Comedy, acts as a foil to Puccini's sentimentalSuor Angelica and his horrific Il Tabarro (The Cloak).Contrasting stage-works such as these were a feature of Paris's successful ‘Grand Guignol'theatre.At a rich man's deathbed, his fortune-seeking relatives hope that they can get Gianni Schicchi to help them to enrich themselves from his estate. They are in for a shock: he enriches himself, instead of them. By contrast, Il Tabarro (The Cloak) depicts a violent and dramatic ‘crime passionnel'on a barge on the River Seine; and the all-female Suor Angelica is set among the nuns incarcerated in an Italian convent ─ there is even a miracle at the end.The one-act operas are sometimes performed separately. This annoyed Puccini, because the three were specifically designed to be performed together on one evening.