✭✭✭✭✩ / ✭✭✭✭✭

by Giacomo Puccini, directed by Jessica Derventzis

Opera 5, Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto

June 3–7, 2026

Suor Angelica: “I desideri sono i fiori dei vivi”

Opera 5 has opened its second annual Toronto Opera Festival with a double-bill of Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. The two one-acts operas are the second and third parts of Puccini’s Il Trittico (1918) that begins with Il Tabarro. The Canadian Opera Company has presented Il Tabarro twice, most recently in 2001, and Gianni Schicchi twice, most recently in 2012. Yet, it has never presented Suor Angelica. This alone should give opera-lovers an added incentive to take in Opera 5’s offerings.

Puccini did not want his triptych of operas presented separately, yet that is what happened beginning just two years after Il Trittico premiered, with Suor Angelica as the most commonly omitted. Seeing Gianni Schicchi immediately after Suor Angelica gives audiences a chance to see how Il Trittico is meant to work and why the context of all three operas is important to an interpretation each component. All three operas are united by the theme of a death that is concealed. Puccini presents this theme in three operas written in extremely diverse styles.

Il Tabarro is a brutal, verismo opera about a murderer who kills his wife’s lover and hides the body. Suor Angelica is a modern version of a medieval miracle play, or to use critic Northrop Frye’s terms for Shakespeare’s later plays, a “romance”, or a play where the resolution is brought about by supernatural intervention. Gianni Schicchi is a straight out comedy about a con man who impersonates a dead man to dictate a new will that will nominally favour the dead man’s family. Viewed as a whole, Il Trittico thus presents the same theme treated as a tragedy, a romance and a comedy. Even seeing Gianni Schicchi immediately after Suor Angelica, as in Opera 5’s production, Puccini’s awareness of deliberately crafting operas in contrasting genres is clearer than if one had seen each opera in isolation.

The plot of Suor Angelica is extremely simple. The setting is a convent near the end of the 17th century, but director Julia Derventzis has moved the period to the time of the opera’s composition. We first get a glimpse into everyday convent life, where various novices are punished for minor infractions. The conversation turns to the subject of desire and the nuns mention that Sour Angelica, who has been in the convent for seven years, had long held the desire to have some news from her family in the outside world. The rumour is that she is from an aristocratic family, but the reason why she is in the convent is not known. As it happens, Suor Angelica does have a visitor this day. It is her aunt, La Zia Principessa, who has come to have Angelica sign a document about the division of her parents’ estate now that both have died.

We learn from the visitor that Angelica is in the convent to atone for the sin of having a child out of wedlock. We further learn that the child died two years ago with no one bothering to tell Angelica of the event. Angelica despairs that she will ever see her child again, but in the final section of the opera titled “Il Miracolo” her wish is fulfilled.

Suor Angelica plays on the audience’s sentiment but it is difficult, even knowing this, not become teary by the end. When Gianni Schcchi is staged immediately following Suor Angelica, we see that the opera deliberately inverts key elements of the preceding opera. Gianni Schcchi immediately thrusts us into a room where a group of people are mourning a relative, Buoso Donato, that none of them liked. All they are concerned about is who will get his money and property in his will. When they discover that Buoso has given everything to the monks, all the relatives abuse the monks as fat and greedy.

In its secularism, its impiety towards death and its anticlerical stance, the world of Gianni Schicchi could not be more different from that of Suor Angelica. Juxtaposition with Suor Angelica make these characteristics stand out even more than when the opera is presented on its own. That Gianni Schicchi is so clearly written in a genre should also point out that Suor Angelica is also written in a genre and the miraculous ending is part of that genre. Seeing the two together, even better with all three, we would realize that Il Trittico is as much about genre as it is about characters. In 1918 Puccini was already famous and had nothing to prove. Many writers and composers in that position begin to examine the nature of the art they create. One should, thus, look at Il Trittico as a master composer’s examination of genre as is Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (1912).

Jessica Derventzis proves to be a sensitive director of opera. Her idea of relocating both operas to the time they were composed makes even clearer the way the two play off each other. Derventzis is expert at managing the onstage action of large groups of performers — 14 in both operas — on the small stage of Theatre Passe Muraille.

Rachel Krehm gives a passionate performance in the title role of Suor Angelica. She successful depicts the huge emotional arc that Angelica travels from contentment at convent life, to agitation, humiliation, grief, despair and redemption. Krehm’s voice is warm and firm in its lower register but can become rather stormy in its higher register or when subject to too much pressure.

Famed mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó is luxury casting in the role of La Zia Principessa. La Zia’s long denunciation of Angelica is difficult to hear because of how cruel La Zia is being to Angelica and even more stingingly effective because of how beautifully sung it is. Szabó’s voice is lower and darker now and she uses these qualities to the utmost in characterizing La Zia as haughty, hard-hearted and vain.

A ray of light among the nuns is Suor Genovieffa sung by soprano Patricia Wrigglesworth. Genovieffa confesses to having a worldly desire in that she misses caring for little lambs as she used to do as a shepherdess. With her bright soprano Wrigglesworth sings this passage with such innocence it’s no wonder no one in the convent is ready to condemn her for her desire.

One of the primary joys of Suor Angelica, a rare all-female opera, is its choral singing, the nuns themselves forming a choir of twelve. From the religious texts at the beginning and end to the banter of the women among themselves Puccini is revealed as a master of choral composition.

Gianni Schicchi has its own luxury casting in the person of well-known baritone Gregory Dahl in the title role. Dahl plays Schicchi as the mischievous joker he is said to be with wonks, nods and jutting chin as he toys with the Buoso’s greedy relatives. It is good he gets a chance to show off his strong, resonant baritone in “Prima un avvertimento” before he has to adopt the pinched tone of the dying Buoso.

As Lauretta, Kate gives a fine account of the opera’s most famous aria “O mio babbino caro”, but she sings it not as a showpiece but fully in the context of the action. As Lauretta’s lover Rinuccio, Jeremy Scinocca wields an impressive heroic tenor that won him applause for “Firenze è come un albero fiorito” though he would do well to vary his dynamics.

Krisztina Szabó appears as Buoso’s cousin Zita, another haughty woman. This casting helps link Suor Angelica to Gianni Schicchi by allowing Szabó to show us two sides, malign and comic, of the same character type. Aaron Dimoff, with his grave bass-baritone, is an excellent Simone, another cousin of Buoso, who is constantly called upon to act since he is the eldest of the relatives.

What makes this Gianni Schicchi especially enjoyable is how clearly Derventzis presents the plot and the many characters and their goals. It is more obvious than in other productions I’ve seen that Schicchi is not tricking Buoso’s relatives for his own gain but rather is doing so to be able to give Lauretta an attractive enough dowry to marry Rinuccio. Derventzis even has Schicchi and Lauretta embrace after “O mio babbino caro” and exchange a hug and wink as if Lauretta’s plea for help were part of the plan.

Designer Carlyn Rahusaar Routledge has made the stage of Theatre Passe Muraille look more elegant than I have ever seen it. The set for Suor Angelica presented a lovely sand-coloured convent terrace beautifully sunlit by lighting designer Siobhan Sleath. The suitably dark set for Gianni Schicchi provided enough furniture to be overturned in the relatives’ frantic search for Buoso’s will without seeming cramped. Routledge places a cross in exactly the same spot on the back wall of both sets further linking the two operas. In Suor Angelica Routledge effectively contrasted La Zia Principessa’s undulating coat and gown in red and purple with the simple lines and sand colour of the nuns’ habits. In Gianni Schicchi Routledge let her imagination run wild in designing various garish outfits for Buoso’s relatives. 

Music Director Evan Mitchell gives a vibrant traversal of his own tasteful reduction of the scores for string quartet, bass, harp and piano. Opera 5 has given opera-lovers a rare chance to see the last two operas of Il Trittico back to back and in well-sung, well-played, well-staged productions. For those who have not yet encountered Opera 5, this is the perfect time to do so.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Rachel Krehm as Suor Angelica and Krisztina Szabó as La Zia Principessa; cast of Suor Angelica; Tristan Pritham as Betto, Krisztina Szabó as Zita, Gregory Dahl as Gianni Schicchi, Aaron Dimoff as Simone, Christopher Pitre-McBride as Marco, MacKenzie Sechi as La Ciesca, Ryan Nauta as Gherardo and Daniela Agostino as Nella; Kate Fogg as Lauretta and Gregory Dahl as Gianni Schicchi. © 2026 Emily Ding.

For tickets visit: www.opera5.ca.