Puccini's Suor Angelica: Oslo Opera House
About the Event
In little under an hour Puccini’s Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica) demonstrates how music can stir our most profound emotions. The opera concerns the power of a mother’s love, and of losing that which you hold dearest.
Sister Angelica’s secret
In Isabella Bywater’s new production, we are taken to a convent in the mid 1960s. The nuns there discuss their desires, but Sister Angelica claims that she has never truly desired anything. This is a lie, because every single day since she arrived at the convent seven years ago, she has longed for her son, who was taken from her. When her aunt comes to visit and informs her that the little boy died several years ago, Angelica’s world collapses.
One piece consisting of three short operas
This short opera contains one of the most beautiful arias Puccini ever wrote for a soprano voice, “Senza mamma”, in which Angelica describes the sorrow of not being there for her son when he died. Suor Angelica is also special because it was written for female voices. The piece premièred as a part of Il Trittico at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918 – just one month after the end of the First World War – and was Pucinni’s penultimate operatic work.
Il tabarro and Gianni Schicchi will be performed on the Main House in 2018, so you can experience the whole trilogy this season.
Cast / Production
Music Giacomo Puccini, Giovacchino Forzano
Conductor Jac van Steen
Director, set and costume designer Isabella Bywater
Lighting designer Tim Mitchell
