Il trittico by Puccini, Sat 20 Mar 2021, From (2021/2022), Directed by Roland Schwab, Conductor Robert Jindra, Aalto Theatre, Essen, Germany

A jealousy drama in the style of a film noir in Paris on the Seine. The mystical transfiguration of a nun in a convent at the end of the 17th century. A medieval inheritance comedy set in Florence with so many turbulent twists and turns it's dizzying. Three stories, three operas, one evening. At first glance they do not have much in common, the one-act plays that Giacomo Puccini summarized under the appropriate if somewhat unwieldy title Il Trittico, a three-part triptych, in 1918 and published in New York at the Met. And yet they are linked together as one, representing three different ways of dealing with life and death. Is human existence a melodrama or rather a comedy? Or even a thriller? It depends on the perspective! The one-act form has a long tradition in Italy since the comic intermezzi of baroque opera. In 1883, the Italian publisher Sonzogno suggested a possible direction to step out of the shadow of the extensive works of Wagner and Verdi when they announced a competition for one-act operas. Puccini still got nothing with his "Le Villi", but the idea of ​​writing a one-act play would not let him go. First he wanted to devote himself to three episodes from Dante's "Divine Comedy" and depict hell, purgatory and paradise. After almost 20 years of work and search for material, all that was left of Dante was the comic opera about the Florentine rogue Gianni Schicchi. Despite this unusual structure, Puccini remains true to himself and his aesthetics: unhappy lovers, heartrending death scenes and an unerring sense of the needs of the little people make the one-act opera a great opera. And with the aria "O mio babbino caro" the composer wrote one of his most famous and popular melodies, which is also often used in films and advertising.