Opera: Il Trittico

Opera

Il Trittico

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Los Angeles

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When Woody Allen was recently asked about directing Puccini for the Los Angeles Opera, he said he had “‘no idea’ what he was doing,” said Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times. Was the legendary film director simply “trying to lower expectations for his directorial debut in opera?” Far from being incompetent, Allen’s Gianni Schicchi—the third part of Puccini’s Il Trittico triptych of one-acts—is a “cleverly updated and inventive staging of the popular comedy.” The director opens with a comic montage of film credits, filled with such mock-Italian names as Giuseppe Prosciutto and Vitello Tonato, and then piles on his trademark “sight gags and busyness” to uproarious effect.

Allen’s production is “a riot,” said Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times. It helps that he has great material. In Gianni Schicchi, the family of the wealthy Buoso Donati melodramatically mourns his recent death while searching for his will. (In Allen’s production, the hiding place is a pot of pasta.) When they learn that Donati has left his money to charity, the family turns to the crafty Gianni Schicchi, who promises to impersonate Donati for a notary and craft a new will. Instead, he tricks the heirs and bequeaths Donati’s possessions to himself. Allen’s approach to the madcap story “manages to be both irreverent and absolutely true to the music and the spirit of the work.”

Allen has brought along his longtime production designer, Santo Loquasto, who brilliantly mimics the milieu of an old Italian film, said Ronald Blum in the Associated Press. His “vibrant cast” is led by veteran baritone Thomas Allen as the title character. The Los Angeles Opera’s general director, Placido Domingo, and its music director, James Conlon, have shown vision by inviting film directors to try their hand on stage this season. Puccini’s other two one-acts—Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica—are here staged by Exorcist director William Friedkin. And Il Trittico is running concurrently with The Fly, composed by Howard Shore and directed by David Cronenberg, who made the 1986 film. The influx of creative leadership marks the Los Angeles Opera as one of the most innovative companies in the country.