Organization

Wexford Festival Opera

Conductor

Giorgio D'Alonzo

Stage director

Grace Morgan

Set designer

Lisa Krugel

Costume designer

Lighting designer

Maksym Diedov

Singer

Soprano

Lorna McLean

Sister Angelica

Contralto

Grace Maria Wain

The Princess

Mezzo-soprano

Dominica Williams

The Abbess

Emma Jungling

Sister Zelatrice

Erin Fflur Williams

The Mistress of the novices

Zita Syme

Sister Genovieffa

Susie Gibbons

Sister Osmina

Kathleen Nic Dhiarmada

Sister Dolcina

Helen Maree Cooper

The nursing sister

Orchestra

Orchestra of Wexford Festival Opera

Italian

Suor Angelica -  (Sister Angelica)

Wexford

Ireland

National Opera House

Jerome Hynes Theatre

Suor Angelica Puccini

Public

English

Approved

World War I was a particularly difficult time for Puccini. His publisher, Giulio Ricordi, had died in 1912, leaving the publishing house in the hands of his son — much less inclined to support Puccini’s music, and more interested in the younger, newer composers such as Riccardo Zandonai, for instance. To make matters worse, Puccini’s only son Tonio was away fighting on Italy’s northern front. And, speaking of borders, Puccini’s travels had become curtailed — so much so that he got into trouble with the Italian consul in Lugano for visiting his latest mistress — Josephine von Stängel — in Switzerland. 

It was little wonder, then, that the rate of Puccini’s operatic production had slowed down. But he did manage his operetta La rondine, eventually premiered in Monte-Carlo in 1917, and there was his miraculous triptych of one-act operas, Il trittico, first staged at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in December 1918. If its final panel, that great comedy Gianni Schicchi, might have looked atypical for Puccini, it must have felt especially uplifting in the aftermath of the war. The other two parts of the trilogy are more typically Puccinian in a way — Il tabarro, a dark tale of jealousy and murder on a Paris barge, and Suor Angelica, the heartbreaking tale of a nun banished to a convent and who poisons herself in order — as she sees it — to be reunited with the young son taken away from her first by her family and then by a fatal fever. 

Suor Angelica stands apart in Puccini’s output for its all-female cast. He always claimed it was his favourite of the triptych and was annoyed when it became the first to be discarded of the three. Easy though it is to see why Gianni Schicchi has remained more popular than its companion pieces, Suor Angelica breathes a very special atmosphere and showcases two great roles for singing actors — Angelica herself and her cruel-hearted aunt, the Zia Principessa. Puccini would doubtless be pleased to see Wexford putting Suor Angelica back in its own spotlight.

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble