Il Trittico review – Puccini's trilogy touches on genuine greatness

Richard Jones’s Royal Opera staging of Puccini’s trilogy of one-act operas was first given complete in 2011 and much admired at the time, though its first revival is a variable effort, touching genuine greatness in places, but revealing inequalities elsewhere. Jones updates all three operas to the years immediately after the second world war and focuses on the themes of class, morality and mortality that link them. The proletarian tragedy of Il Tabarro throws into relief both the hypocritical aristocratic ethics that immure Suor Angelica in her convent, and the bourgeois grubbiness of Gianni Schicchi.

Unfortunately, Il Tabarro, in this instance, feels underpowered. Jones’s production betrays an occasional lack of focus and passion burns dimly in Nicola Luisotti’s conducting. Of the protagonists, only Patricia Racette’s drudge-with-aspirations Giorgetta gets inside the music. Lucio Gallo’s Michele struggles with his high notes. Carl Tanner’s Luigi can be unwieldy.

Elsewhere we’re on surer ground, and Suor Angelica, relocated to a comfortless Roman Catholic children’s hospital, is among Jones’s finest achievements. Luisotti’s reined-in style is admirably suited to it, but it is Ermonela Jaho in the title role that makes it so special. Combining sound, sense and physical gesture in a heartbreaking, at times harrowing, portrait of a soul in crisis, she gives, quite simply, one of the finest operatic performances of recent years.

Gallo, meanwhile, returns as Schicchi at the evening’s close. Those top notes still cause trouble, but his wide-boy swagger and fine declamation prove wonderfully engaging. Paolo Fanale and Susanna Hurrell are drop-dead gorgeous as Rinuccio and Lauretta, while Elena Zilio, Marie McLaughlin and David Kempster stand out in the classy ensemble playing the appalling Donatis. An uneven revival – but the best of it is tremendous and Jaho is unmissable.

• At the Royal Opera House, London, until 15 March. Buy tickets at theguardianboxoffice.com or call 0330 333 6906.