✭✭✭✩✩ / ✭✭✭✩✩

by Giacomo Puccini / Pietro Mascagni, directed by Tom Diamond

Canadian Opera Company, Hummingbird Centre, Toronto

September 20-October 5, 2001

"Two Deaths by Design"

Musically the COC's new double-bill of Puccini's "Il Tabarro" and Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" is filled with stunning moments.  Each opera features an exciting performance by the female lead.  Yet, contrary to what we have become used to in the best COC productions, the direction and design hinder more than enhance the theatrical experience.

Puccini's 1918 triptych of one-act operas, "Il Trittico", has never been popular in that format.  In practice the three--"Il Tabarro", "Suor Angelica" and "Gianni Schicchi"--are most often seen separately.  "Cavalleria rusticana" has traditionally been paired with Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci", the similar style, setting and vocal requirements providing strong links between them.  After a century of "Cav and Pag", it's not surprising that opera companies have lately been looking for other partners for them.  In 1996 the COC paired "Gianni Schicchi" with "I Pagliacci", each assigned to a different director.  Now the COC has paired "Il Tabarro" with Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" in a unified production directed by Tom Diamond. 

This pairing shows "Tab" and "Cav" as variations on the same theme.  In both a jealous husband murders his wife's lover.  In "Tab" the leading female is the wife; in "Cav" it is an abandoned woman who reveals her ex-lover's affair to the husband.  In "Tab" the leading female wants to escape a relationship; in "Cav" she wants to be part of one again.  Otherwise, the main differences are in the setting.  "Tab" takes place on a barge in the Seine, "Cav" on the dry land of Sicily.  The characters in "Tab" are cut off from the greater world around them;  in "Cav" they are part of a larger community.  "Tab" begins at sunset, "Cav" at dawn. 

Designer Teresa Przybylski has brought out all of these parallels and contrasts but in totally unsubtle ways.  The dominant colour for both operas is grey, both for the set and the costumes.  She treats the audience as dimwits by colour-coding the leads in both works--orange for the leading female, blue for the tenor and grey for the baritone who kills him.  This last, I suppose, makes the wronged husband a representative of the grey environment hostile to those who (colourfully) stand out by breaking the rules. 

Her set for "Tab" is entirely open with a naturalistic barge jutting beyond the proscenium below a high metal bridge with Notre-Dame faintly in the distance.  In contrast, "Cav" is set in a closed grey box, the façade of a cathedral painted on the back wall.  Unaccountably the box has two large doors in the stage right corner that open into open spaces.  But isn't the piazza in front of the cathedral an open space?  Bizarrely what seems to be a cooled lava flow has crept into the box seemingly causing the cathedral to tilt.  From a practical point of view both sets are extremely awkward in not allowing easy exits.  We shouldn't have to see the cast still making their way off stage long after the applause after each finale.  The treacherous lava flow in "Cav" also makes entrances over it difficult.

Tom Diamond, who has directed such delightful productions of Cavalli for the COC Ensemble in the past, uses a concept here that doesn't really work.  He has decided that this double-bill is really a film noir double feature complete with projected title and composer's name.  This idea works quite well given the amoral characters of "Tab", set in a world adrift where wife and lover plot to kill the husband only to be found out.  It doesn't, however, suit "Cav" at all.  Set as it is during a grand village celebration of Easter in and around a cathedral, this world has a firm moral basis even if, in a moment of weakness, a wronged woman seeks revenge.  Diamond's direction in "Tab" makes sense, but in "Cav" he needlessly locates some scenes indoors relying solely on Kevin Lamotte's lighting to tell us where we are.  The point, however, of "Cav" is it likeness to Greek tragedy, played entirely outdoors and with its violence off-stage.  Both operas take place in real time, but Diamond has Lamotte veer between naturalistic and expressionistic lighting as if he weren't sure which style to choose.

"Il Tabarro" is probably most people's least favourite Puccini opera both because of its brutal ending and because none of the main characters is sympathetic.  But Puccini expert Michele Girardi's close analysis of the music has revealed a symphonic structure in the work not unlike Act 1 of Berg's "Wozzeck".  Richard Bradshaw's conducting admirably brings out the work's musical integrity.  To be gripping "Tab" requires superlative acting skills from its singers.  Eszter Sümegi (Giorgetta), fully rises to the challenge.  Radiant of voice she gives a finely detailed performance with full expression of conflicting emotions.  In contrast Yuri Nechaev (her husband Michele) has a face nearly devoid of expression allowing his rich baritone to do all the acting for him.  Tenor Vadim Zaplechny (Giorgetta's lover Luigi) seems unsure how to play this unheroic character and this unsureness creeps into his vocal production and shows in his generalized gestures.  In lesser roles, there is fine work from COC regulars Michael Colvin and Alain Coulombe (dock workers Tinca and Talpa) and Susan Shafer provides a delightful characterization of Giorgetta's cat-loving friend Frugola. 

In "Cavalleria rusticana" the undoubted star is mezzo Alina Gurina as the wronged woman Santuzza.  It's not hard to see why she has been compared to Maria Callas.  In this demanding part, requiring her to be in a state on perpetual anguish, she shows total identification with her character and gives a performance of overwhelming emotional power.  Zaplechny (her ex-lover Turiddu) is on firmer ground here and gives a fine account of the role vocally and dramatically.  Nechaev (Alfio, another jealous husband) is still impassive but this is less important here since the role is smaller.  Susan Shafer (Mamma Lucia, Turiddu's mother) sings with strength and vocal lustre.  Krisztina Szabó, a recent Ensemble Studio member plays Lola, Alfio's wife, who has stolen Turiddu from Santuzza.  She has just the right hauteur for the part and her voice has acquired a lovely burnished tone.

The COC Chorus once again prove how marvelous they are particularly in the stirring "Innegiamo, il Signor" that climaxes the Easter procession.  Bradshaw gives the work a swifter pace than usual, most noticeably in the well-known Intermezzo, that cuts through the sentiment and heightens the dramatic tension. 

Personally, I think it would have been more interesting to link "Cavalleria" with "Suor Angelica" as the Staatstheater Darmstadt is doing this very month.  Two murders committed in different locales is not as enlightening as would be two works of completely different tone related by the larger themes of religion and death.  Nevertheless, given the present double-bill, if one ignores the inimical design concept, there is much beautiful music to enjoy.  And you won't want to miss Sümegi or Gurina.

©Christopher Hoile

Photo: Alina Gurina as Santuzza. ©2001 Canadian Opera Company.