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Puccini's "Il Trittico": "Il Tabarro (the cloak)" as sexy and savage as "Porgy & Bess" (Part One)
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Brandon Jovanovich/Luigi and Patricia Racette/Giorgetta in the grip of love
Il Trittico's Il Tabarro (the cloak): As in La Boheme and Butterfly, Puccini strikes me as a misogynist who targets innocent women only to have them suffer and die, so why did San Francisco Opera's Il Trittico get such astounding reviews?
Moreover I had one (ex) friend who turned down a premium orchestra seat with me to photograph the leather/bondage/S & M street fair Sunday afternoon because, he said, he didn’t like any of the songs, not one. Why wasn't he in church? Moreover if one relishes pain, why not Puccini instead of just goofy leather outfits?
However. Even the definitive critic, Josh Kosman, says this is the best David Gockley has ever done it’s so magnificent. Judging from the comments on SFGate, Josh actually made a friend or two with his new sunny outlook on life as he loved these stories about death and the effect on the living. Two dead children and one remarkably animated dead old man. Actually, the critics uniformly praised each of the principal singers' voices not the story so much.
My colleague Steve "Professor" Smoliar went so far as to find Il Tabarro's Belleville in Wikipedia. Belleville has a robust history as a political bastion, supporters of the Paris commune.
Part one: Il Tabarro (the cloak)
The last time Paulo Gavanelli came to San Francisco, I stood on stage with him in a Carnival party scene as he sang Rigoletto. So to hear that glorious, magnificent voice again gave me goosebumps, literally. That's me on the left, unmasked.
Rigoletto’s tragedy was the inadvertent killing of his own beloved and innocent child, the only family he had. Here in Il Tabarro he and his young wife have tragically lost a child and consequently their marriage.
Goosebumps say it all
I had Rigoletto moments of awe yesterday—thrills and goosebumps--during Il Trittico’s Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicci because of Gavanelli. The first set of goosebumps surfaced when Gavanelli sang to his young wife, why did she no longer reach for him to kiss?
Goosebumps again at the savage ending. Gavanelli’s Michele, after he has sawed the throat of his wife’s sexy and muscular lover, shields from his wife’s view the kneeling body. Giorgetta sings to him about how his cloak hides. Michele cocks his head suddenly as if in satisfaction. He keeps his composure while her words give him an evil idea and his silent reaction creates suspense about the big reveal to come.
Giorgetta and Bess sisterhood
Il Tabarro had a Porgy & Bess feel of waterfront brutality—for example where a smaller, older, lonelier but muscular man kills the young stud and romantic rival. Michele kills the young stud Luigi; Porgy the cripple kills Crown the brutal stevedore. Here's the stevedore in Porgy giving a lady a hand.
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So it’s not Catfish Row, which would not have existed when Puccini wrote Il Tabarro. It’s Belleville, outside of Paris. Indeed, doesn’t busty tight-dressed Giorgetta of the opening act look and act like a sexy drugged out Bess, from the opening act of Porgy & Bess? Giorgetta and Bess each desire to escape their dreary world of oppression and brutality for the City. Here's Bess kicking up her heels as Crown, left, looks on:
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Like the stevedore Crown or even the hero Porgy when he kills Crown, Gavanelli's Michele shows no mercy.
Interestingly enough, mercy would be the lesson the director of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio is trying to convey this season. Mercy as a way of life.
Similarly burly, Andrea Silvestrelli, really did look and sound like the dock worker or stevedore, Talpa. I just saw Andrea as a giant in Seattle’s Ring Cycle and again in his street clothes at Opera at the Baseball Park.
Nice pants
Bruno Schwengl created the costumes for Il Tabarro, including the big gloves tucked into belt of the lover, sung by American tenor Brandon Jovanovich. Brandon performed the role hands on, gloves off, all testosterone and gusto. That’s one tenor that sang baritone in another life. Similarly Patricia Racette’s enraptured married woman responded in kind, groping the front of his pants while the lovers embraced (pictured at the top of this article). Lust on the waterfront, the tone set in the opening scene with two anonymous lovers pushing and grinding together against the wall.
Cold and clammy
Allen Moyer’s gritty set from New York City Opera did seem atmospheric. Wonderful lighting produced the reflection of the Seine rippling in the moonlight and one could almost smell the river water. The rusty metal and rivets of the barge almost felt cold, clammy. However Catherine Cook sang the stevedore's wife Frugola robustly like something out of La Miserables, that she would rather be king of a hovel than a servant in better circumstances.
The script originally calls for a silhouette of old Paris, Notre Dame, crimson sky and tenements that border the river front along with tall elms along with a typical barge of the Seine.
One can see why Patricia/Giorgetta sings a lovely duet about yearning to return to Paris. It struck me as something that would go to the heart of everybody in the San Francisco audience, loving the city with it’s residents coming and going during commute hours; everybody knowing everybody.
Like many others at the opera on Sunday, most probably remember Patricia Racette from Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Sunday afternoon I could hear Patricia warming up as I sat with my new friend in the standing room line at about place number 23. I heard a little dog bark from the dressing room. Her fans gushed. “She has a beautiful voice, Patricia.”
Dedicated to my new friend on the bench at Opera Plaza
About the duet where Giorgetta yearns for the City. The retired woman to whom I gave the empty premium orchestra seat left by my friend at the leather fair, had told me it was a mistake to have sold her house in the Sunset and then to have moved to Novato. There is absolutely nothing to do there she said. She had only moved there a year or two ago to be near her daughter. She wanted to come back to San Francisco and just rent a place. That’s my dream too, I told her. She and I had met on a bench at opera plaza, Peet’s coffee cups in hand and each a woman alone. I dedicate this article to her.
To be continued.
For more info: www.SFOpera.com
Gavanelli in Rigoletto, SFO 2006
Porgy & Bess a religious experience
Porgy & Bess opens at SFO Tuesday June 9, 2009
Porgy & Bess in a new era (Mother in Law Lounge)
Porgy & Bess an American classic
Fred Matthews takes opera full circle producing Cavalcade of Stars
Lester Lynch sings womanizer Crown
Director Francesca Zambello
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