Nobody tells a story like Puccini – nobody except director Barrie Kosky, designer Rebecca Ringst, lighting designer Joachim Klein, Lorenzo Viotti’s Netherlands Philharmonic or, indeed, any other member of the dream team assembled for this phenomenal centenary year production in which brief, brilliant flares of human life are pitted against tide, time and the dead hand of fate. All the superlatives will be expended over this latest triumph from Dutch National Opera. Believe every one.
Il tabarro, the darkest of Puccini’s trilogy of one-acters, crept in on a pianissimo that was as breathtaking as the first glimpse of Ringst’s magnificent minimalist set. Emerging from the darkness, accompanied by wisps of river fog, two mighty but unmistakably Parisian quay walls out of which appear a stark structure that by its steady advance suggests a barge, gliding on the Seine’s timeless flow. Ingeniously lit, the simple structure throws long shadows to make more gantries along a dockside busy with workers and their shadow selves.
On the barge, long lost to grief and disappointment, are Giorgetta – sung by the luminous Leah Hawkins – and her estranged husband, Michele, Daniel Luis de Vicente. Hawkins' Giorgetta was animated only by her dreams of a better life, either when she’s singing about her native Belleville – some of the most ravishing music Puccini ever wrote extols life in a suburb or making a tryst with her lover – as well she might: Joshua Guerrero was a knockout Luigi. In presenting the simple story of two people trapped in a marriage that fell apart long ago, Kosky gets straight to the heart of Puccini’s psychological drama and makes it shockingly present. When Michele kills his wife’s lover it is a tragedy. The all-too recognisable look of surprise on Hawkins’ face when he turns the knife on Giorgetta is devastating.
It's the perfect meeting of music and design that take your breath away all over again as Suor Angelica opens to the honey-coloured serenity of May morning in a convent and a chorus of sisters in stunning purple habits and white bonnets moving in unison up and down the hidden cloister stairway that dominates the stage. The message here is that ritual and regularity allows a community to live with secrets. But this is opera and the entrance of La zia principessa – and what an entrance by the fabulous Raehann Bryce-Davis as Angelica's aunt – can only mean those secrets are all spilling out into the open. This was Bryce Davis’ second appearance of the evening, having been a wonderfully too-much Frugola in Tabarro. As Angelica, Elena Stikhina was perfection, both vocally and dramatically. If you have ever lost a child yourself, this would be be a difficult watch. If you have ever lost anyone close to you, you will recognise in Angelica’s final moment – after the throes of operatic obligation – death’s shocking simplicity.
In a gorgeous bit of comic set up before Gianni Schicchi, the curtain rises on a colourful family birthday party and some of the best musicians in the business singing Happy Birthday to You as badly as you will ever hear it. The elderly Buoso Donati blows his candles out one by one and falls down dead in the cake. And we’re off! The final and most often performed part of the triptych proves a masterclass in clowning, with the ensemble – dressed in tutti frutti colours – going full cartoon as the family in ruthless pursuit of a house, a mule and the mill at Signa. Guerrero and Inna Demenkova were absolutely delicious as the young lovers who can’t keep their hands of each other; both have comic talent in spades too and Demenkova’s “O mio babbino caro” was every bit as irresistible as it should have been. Daniel Luis de Vicente, returning with great comic gusto as the audacious Schicchi, was putty in her hands. We all were.
Spare a thought for the poor corpse who has to lie on the birthday table wearing only a pair of terrible underpants almost throughout... except for a brief, crucial moment of reanimation to fool the gullable notaries. I only hope Kosky let him open his eyes during the rehearsal so that he didn’t miss out on any of the fun. You shouldn’t either. Cross oceans if you must. This is as good as it gets.
