Il Trittico

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Image courtesy of Liceu

Puccini can be viewed as the engineer who, by completing the bridge Verdi had begun, connected Italian tradition directly with modernity. In his last works (of which Il Trittico is one), he anticipates the more modern forms of Debussy and Strauss.

Puccini sets his own personal seal on each of these operatic gems: a thriller set on the banks of the Seine (Il tabarro), the suffering, death and glorification of a nun whose child has been taken from her (Suor Angelica), and a humorous satire about a will which the relatives try to change by impersonating the deceased (Gianni Schicchi).

These three one-act operas seem unconnected. But are they? Giacomo Puccini assembled them under the title Il trittico (the triptych) and they are facets of a single reality. Instead of making a vain attempt to portray the whole world in a long opera, as in an epic novel, he selects three events and brings them together in a work of music which seeks to convey every shade of human emotion with intensity: from implacable coldness of heart to burning passion, via avarice, artfulness or parody.

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