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Il tabarro

Composer and librettist

Music: Giacomo Puccini Lyrics: Giuseppe Adami.

Libretto

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Première

First performance: New-York, Metropolitan at 14 of december 1918.

On a barge moored beside the Seine, Michele sits and watches the stevedores finish work for the day, while his wife Giorgetta does her chores. As the stevedores walk past the barge on their way home, Giorgetta steals a few moments with one of them, Luigi, who is her lover. Michele looks on suspiciously, but does nothing, enabling the lovers to arrange a meeting later that night. Once Giorgetta is back on board, Michele tries to embrace her, but she pushes him away and goes inside the barge. He is convinced of her infidelity and as he sits alone on deck he lights his pipe - flare from which is mistaken by Luigi for Giorgettas signal. He climbs onboard onlu to encounter Michele, who forces the stevedore to confess the affair. He then strangles him to death and hides his body beneath his overcoat. When Giorgetta appears on deck and walks towards her husband, he slowly opens his coat to reveal her lover´s corpse.

Suor Angelica

Music: Giacomo Puccini. Lyrics: Giovacchino Forzano.

Libretto

Première

First performance: New-York, Metropolitan at 14 of december 1918.

A convent, late-seventeenth-century Italy. The curtain rises on a group of nuns busy with their chores. Everyone is cheerful - except Angelica, who has been seven years in the convent and has heard nothing from her family in all that time. Suddenly, however, the abbess informs her that her aunt, a princess, has come to see her. Angelica rushes to greet her, but is coldly received by the princess. It emerges that Angelica was sent to the convent by her family as punishment for having an illegitimate child; the princess has come not to forgive, but to inform that her child is died. The princess leaves, and as Angelica sings of her longing to join her child in Heaven, her sister nuns raise their voices in praise of the Virgin Mary. Left alone, Angelica drinks poison, but then it dawns on her that her suicide will result in damnation - and thus separation from the child she newer knew. She prays despairingly to the Madonna, and this time her voice is joined by those of angels. As the songs rises to a height of ecstasy, the Madonna herself appears - with Angelicas´s child - to lead her into Heaven.

Gianni Schicchi

Music: Giacomo Puccini. Lyrics: by Giovacchino Forzano after an episod in Dantes La divina commedia.

Libretto

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Première

First performance: Metropolitian at 14 of december 1918.

Time and place: Firenze, 1299.

Florence, late thirteenth century. The scene is the bedroom of the recently decaesad Buosi Donati, a rich old gentleman with a large and greedy family. His family is gathered about his bed, pretending to mourn his passing, until it is suggested by one of their number that he has left the entire fortune to the local monastery. They rush about the house in search of the will. Rinuccio finds it,but will not reveal its contents until they agree to his marrying Gianni Schicchis daughter, Lauretta. They agree but are appalled when the will confirms their fears; it is all to go the church. Rinuccio then suggests turning the problem over to his future father-in-law, who is famed for his cunning. Despite mocking his lowly birth, the family agrees; at first, Schicchi refuses to help but when Lauretta intercedes he agrees to sort out the problem as long as everyone plays along with his plan. He will pretend to be Buoso and rewrite his will - but they must never reveal the deception, as the punishment under Florentine law is severe. When the notary arrives, Schicchi awards the money and the estates to his "devoted friend" Gianni Schicchi. The horrified relatives are helpless, and once the notary has left Schicchi drives the family from his newly acquired home. Rinuccio and Lauretta remain, singing of their; looking on, Schicchi ends the opera delighting at the way in which Buoso´s money has been used.

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