Sin, ostracism, slapstick comedy, greed and suicide all mixed
together sound to some people like the ideal soap opera scenario.
To UCLA’s opera department, it’s the perfect
characterization for this year’s annual winter quarter
performance.
The program includes Giacomo Puccini’s “Suor
Angelica” and “Gianni Schicchi,” two of the three
pieces in his well-loved collection of one-act operas, Il Trittico.
Having already put on two well-received productions of the pieces
this past weekend, the department expects to receive a similar
response this weekend, on Feb. 3 and 5.
“Suor Angelica” tells the story of a young woman who
is sent against her will to a convent after having an illegitimate
child. After staying there for seven years, she learns that her son
has died and resorts to suicide in an attempt to join him in the
afterlife.
Despite the pain she endures, Suor Angelica’s honesty and
intelligence help her arrive ultimately in a state of
atonement.
“It is about the struggle of a woman with her loss, sense
of abandonment, grief, and her struggle with personal redemption,
so there is a dark aspect to it,” said Juliana Gondek,
distinguished professor of voice at UCLA and chair of the voice
department. “But there is also redemption; there is also a
miracle.”
Contrary in tone is “Gianni Schicchi,” an opera that
director Peter Kazaras described as “the first original
sitcom.” Modernized to take place in 2002, the opera traces
the story of an Italian mobster’s family as they attempt to
bribe and connive their way into a family member’s will.
Making parallels to “I Love Lucy” and “Curb
Your Enthusiasm,” Kazaras attributed the humor of the piece
to Puccini’s focus on the notion that all the events which
unfold, although comical, are essentially plausible in real life.
According to Kazaras, the opera does not rely on cheap tricks to
achieve its humor.
Evan Hughes, a fourth-year music student who is to play
Gianni’s character in the Feb. 4 performance, referred to the
role as one of the most rewarding challenges he had encountered in
the opera program thus far. This positive experience was due in
large part to the energetic and “multi-directional”
nature of the piece.
“At the same time that we are singing this wonderful music
that is incredibly fun, incredibly difficult and incredibly
dramatic, we also have fast-paced slapstick acting on stage,”
he said.
The performers sing both pieces in Italian as the English
translation is projected above the stage for the audience. The
clear and meticulous staging and the high level of emotional drama
written into the score help narrate the operas beyond the
dialogue.
“Even if the audience did not speak one word of Italian
and we had no supertitles, the action is so clear from the staging
that you could never glance up and still know exactly what’s
going on,” Gondek said.
In addition to studying Italian diction and expression in
preparation for the operas, the performers also watched old Italian
films to understand the type of impassioned action Puccini had
written into the scores. According to Kazaras, this heightened
level of emotion helps to engage the audience with the drama of the
performance.
“Both of these pieces are sterling examples, one tragic
and one comic, of why opera is what it is ““ a communal
celebration, and people coming together to tell a story,”
Kazaras said. “And there is no one who is more adept at
manipulating your feelings than Puccini.”
Although their subject matter is delicate and somewhat
controversial, Kazaras avoids applying the themes of the operas to
modern-day events.
He instead pinpoints his focus on solely telling the stories
that Puccini wrote into the scores.
“These operas are not going to change anybody’s
life. … (But) they get you in touch with feelings that, on an
everyday basis, you tend to forget,” Kazaras said.
“We all can cry, we all can laugh, and it’s
important to remember that.”