Stunning ‘Il Trittico’ delights opera fans

By Christine Anne Piesyk | April 28, 2007 |

A stunning performance of Giacomo Puccini’s complete three-act Il Trittico played to a near capacity crowd at Green Hills Mall in Nashville Saturday, a high-definition big screen broadcast of the New York Metropolitan Opera Live from Lincoln Center. Maestro James Levine conducted.

First performed in 1918, Il Trittico is actually three distinct one-act operas, two heart-wrenching tragedies followed by a light-hearted look at living, dying and “the will.”

The opening segment, Il Tabarro, unfolds its tragedy in the form of a lovers triangle — with the faithless wife Giorgetta (Maria Guleghina) mourning the loss of a child, falling from her husband’s arms into the passionate embrace of an all too eager Luigi (Salvatore Licitra). Guleghina brings a beauty and power to the role, torn between what was, what is and what will be, yearning for the physical love of Luigi, while waging a love/hate war with her husband Michele (Juan Pons), the father of her lost child. Licitar’s voice, in a word, mesmerizes as he sings of his adoration and his frustration at not being able to claim his new love for his own. Pons offers a haunting aria of passion, hatred and despair as he realizes his wife has betrayed him, has triggered in him the power to kill. «Read the rest of this article»

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