Puccini opera Il Trittico at Wolverhampton Light House

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD13LPwNKPc

Following the success of the Live from the Met presentations and Summer at Glyndebourne in 2011, Wolverhampton's Light House cinema will show Puccini's Il Trittico as the first screening of its Music on Screen season.

The season features spectacular operas and ballet from the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

The screening of Il Trittico will take place on Monday, February, 20 at 6.30pm.Tickets cost £18 for adults and £12.50 for under 15s. Contact Light House Box Office on 01902 716055 or visit www.light-house.co.uk

Il Trittico is a set of three, brilliant, individual one-act operas, often staged in isolation despite being intended by Giacomo Puccini to be performed together as a single program.

First performed in 1918, Puccini at first conceived of three contrasting operas drawn from Dante's Divine Comedy, however ultimately based only the third on Dante; the farcical Gianni Schicchi with its stylistic roots in Commedia Dell'arte.

The three panels of Puccini's great triptych, Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, have been wonderfully reunited for the first time in fifty years by director Richard Jones and,musical director Antonio Pappano at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House.

The first panel, Il tabarro (The Cloak), takes us to a barge on the banks of the Seine, where an unusually dark version of the eternal operatic triangle is played out with a gruesome and violent ending. World-famous soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek takes on the role of Giorgetta, who betrays her sombre husband Michele with the handsome stevedore Luigi – with terrible consequences.

Next comes Suor Angelica, the story of a young woman forced to become a nun after she has had an illegitimate baby; after seven years, a relative arrives with devastating news. The devoted and tormented mother, Sister Angelica, is sung by Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho.

Contralto Anna Larsson takes on the role of her aunt, the Princess, while Jette Parker Young Artist Anna Devin sings the charming cameo role of Sister Genovieffa.

Notoriously difficult to execute, Suor Angelica is a fatalistic parable of sin, punishment and redemption, its morality constrained along with its heroine in the stiff clerical uniform of Catholicism.

Finally, in the mordant comedy Gianni Schicchi we meet the Florentine relatives of the late Buoso Donati, intent upon altering the will of their deceased family member with the aid of a wily newcomer to the city. Renowned baritone Lucio Gallo returns to The Royal Opera to sing the role of the cunning Schicchi.

Elena Zilio leads a comic group of greedy Donati relatives as Zita, and Ekaterina Siurina and Francesco Demuro, both rising stars, sing the lovers Lauretta and Rinuccio.

Based upon Richard Jones' 2007 production of Gianni Schicchi, the opera takes on a new lease of life under the musical direction of Antonio Pappano, who is able to gently reveal the beauty of Il Trittico. Often, a little of the three panels is lost when shown individually. However, juxtaposed in series, as intended by Giacomo Puccini, their brilliance is once again made stark in the Royal Opera House's restored production.

Il Trittico is the first of four screenings of Light House's Music on Screen season.