Salzburg Festival – “Trittico”: Cheering for Puccini’s rehabilitation in Salzburg
Puccini’s late work, which premiered in New York at the end of 1918, i.e. immediately after the First World War, is one of the composer’s rarely performed pieces today. Puccini juxtaposed three separate one-act plays with no real connection – originally with the idea of taking Dante’s “Divine Comedy” as a starting point in the sequence of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, of which not much remained. What remained were three perspectives on being human: from the couple at the end of their relationship in “Il tabarro” to a suicidal mother in “Suor Angelica” to the light inheritance sneaking comedy “Gianni Schicchi” – in this order.
As in the Greek Dionysia, the satyr play always followed the three tragedies as the concluding element, Puccini placed the tension-relieving “Schicchi” at the end of the triptych for the premiere. In Salzburg, on the other hand, the order was reversed. Director Christof Loy welcomes the audience with a buffo start and ends with the most rarely played piece in the trilogy, the tragic “Suor Angelica”. Dramaturgically a daring decision that actually goes against the emotional arc – which, however, shows itself as a fully coherent result when you have Asmik Grigorian as the central singer in all three parts.
In the case of the 41-year-old, who rose to become the Salzburg superstar in 2018 as Salome, a restrained elegance without diva-likeness always shimmers through, a melancholy shaded inwardness. As a result, she simply gives “more solid” characters like Giorgetta, the cargo captain’s wife who is cheating on her husband, in “Tabarro” too little grounding, too little down-to-earthness. The Russian baritone Roman Burdenko as her husband, on the other hand, is in his element here with a solid, broad vocal focus.
And in “Schicchi” Grigorian is, despite the popular hit “O mio babbino caro”, like all Laurettas, more of a secondary character. Even if Alexey Neklyudov can’t hold a candle to her as her lover Rinuccio with an all too bright timbre, she takes a backseat to Misha Kiria as the cunning title character. The Lithuanian only fully plays out her inimitable qualities as a noblewoman who is forced into a monastery, who has to find out in “Suor Angelica” that her illegitimate child has died in the meantime and who kills herself in order to be with him. In turn, the singer-actress with the precisely set timbre made the premiere audience’s eyes water.
The two leading team leaders, Franz Welser-Möst at the podium of the Vienna Philharmonic in the Graben and director Loy, leave all the space to her. Welser-Möst leads the orchestra through the disparate work, full of nuances, mostly taking the ditch back, playing Puccini relatively slim. Loy becomes the great minimalist, reducing the sets to focus more on the characters. Last but not least, that was one of the reasons for the sensational success that the 59-year-old brought in with the “Cosí” of the Corona year 2020, which was spontaneously added to the program.
In “Trittico” he relies on sometimes surprisingly naturalistic elements such as the barge in “Tabarro” or the monastery of Angelica, which is strikingly reminiscent of the university’s Catholic theological faculty across from the Festspielhaus. And yet he keeps the freedom for the singers to a large extent free. Using side walls, it rejuvenates the enormous dimensions of the Festspielhaus stage and yet keeps the ensemble moving to explore the space offered. And so, despite Grigorian’s brilliant performance, the panopticon of people in despair ends up being an ensemble work.
(SERVICE – “Il Trittico” by Giacomo Puccini at the Salzburg Festival in the Great Festival Hall, Hofstallgasse 1, 5020 Salzburg. Conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic: Franz Welser-Möst, director: Christof Loy, stage: Etienne Pluss, costumes: Barbara Drosihn. With Gianni Schicchi – Misha Kiria, Lauretta – Asmik Grigorian, Zita – Geländeejda Shkosa, Michele – Roman Burdenko, Giorgetta – Asmik Grigorian, Luigi – Joshua Guerrero, Suor Angelica – Asmik Grigorian, La Zia Principessa – Karita Mattila, La Badessa – Hanna Schwarz Further performances on August 5, 9, 13, 18 and 21. Broadcast on August 13 from 6.30 p.m. live on the Internet on ARTE Concert and with a time delay from 10 p.m. on ORF 2. www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/p/il-trittico)