National Symphony Orchestra
Spend a Sunday afternoon in the enchanting musical world of Il trittico, Puccini’s grand triptych of one-act operas: Suor Angelica, Il tabarro, and Gianni Schicchi, featuring such iconic arias as “O mio babbino caro,” “Senza mamma,” “Firenze è come un albero fiorito,” and many more. This complete, three-part performance—a first at Carnegie Hall—is conducted by 2023 Puccini Award winner Gianandrea Noseda, one of today’s most celebrated opera and concert conductors. An international cast of all-star singers brings each tale to life—from intense tragedy to comical farce—alongside the National Symphony Orchestra and The Washington Chorus.
Performers
National Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda, Music Director and Conductor
Meryl Dominguez, Soprano
Erika Grimaldi, Soprano
Agnieszka Rehlis, Mezzo-Soprano
Hakeem Henderson, Tenor
Gregory Kunde, Tenor
Roman Burdenko, Baritone
The Washington Chorus
Eugene Rogers, Director
Program
ALL-PUCCINI PROGRAMSuor Angelica
Il tabarro
Gianni Schicchi
Event Duration
The program will last approximately three and one-half hours, including two 15-minute intermissions. Please note that there will be no late seating until each intermission.
At a Glance
As early as 1912, Giacomo Puccini thought about an evening of three one-act operas, a “triptych.” It didn’t take him long to find his first subject, the shadowy story of jealousy along the Seine that would become Il tabarro (The Cloak), but the next two eluded him. With growing frustration, he read through and discarded numerous plays until the young Italian playwright Giovacchino Forzano presented him with two viable plots: an original sketch with an all-female cast for a one-act play set in a convent, and a scenario based on a few lines in Dante’s Inferno about Gianni Schicchi, a Florentine con artist.
As Puccini wrote to librettist Giuseppe Adami, “The difficulty for me is to begin an opera, that is, to find its musical atmosphere.” Il trittico speaks truth to Puccini’s artistic creed like no other work in his oeuvre; each tableau in no way resembles another, musically or dramatically. Three individual stories reside within three unique sound worlds: the austerity of stone convent walls in Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica); the undulations of the Seine in Il tabarro; and the jubilant, speed-driven comic action in Gianni Schicchi. The audience would gasp in horror, weep in despair, and laugh in delight.