Suor Angelica / Il prigioniero
Two operas, Suor Angelica by Giacomo Puccini and Luigi Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero, feature in a double-bill at Teatro Costanzi in Rome. This run of performances includes both one-act operas in full with music provided by the esteemed Teatro dell’Opera di Roma Orchestra and Chorus. The programme opens with Puccini's famous opera about a nun, known in English as Sister Angelica, and concludes with a rendition of Il prigioniero, often simply called The Prisoner among English-speaking opera fans.
Puccini wrote the music for Suor Angelica to a libretto produced by the film-maker and writer Giovacchino Forzano, the man who was also Puccini's librettist for Gianni Schicchi. Set in the 17th century, the opera tells the story of a noblewoman of Florence. Having given birth to a child out of wedlock, her aristocratic family send her to a nunnery. Over the course of many years, she wonders about what may have become of her son only to be confronted with devastating news about him. Puccini's music draws out the tension and loss of the title character as she struggles to come to terms with what she learns. Part of Puccini's Il trittico - three one-act operas known as The Triptych which also includes Gianni Schicchi and Il tabarro - Suor Angelica received its world premiere in the United States. It was first performed as part of Il trittico at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on 14 December 1918.
Originally conceived by the Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola as a radio opera to be broadcast, Il prigioniero was first performed on the RAI radio station on 1 December 1949. The first proper staging of it took place at the Teatro Comunale in Florence on 20 May 1950. Based on a French work named La Torture par l’espérance by Auguste de Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, as well as on La légende d’Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak, by the Belgian writer Charles de Coster, the operatic version was conceived and, in part, written by Dallapiccola during the Second World War. Dallapiccola's version plays out in Spain after the time of the Inquisition when the books it was based on were set. The plot revolves around a nameless protestant Dutchman, a prisoner who had been a rabbi in Villiers' story. The prisoner is resisting torture and has been given hope by his jailer, who tells him about freedom. Soon he sees his cell door is open, but will he really attain the longed-for freedom?
Tragic and emotive themes are brought to the stage splendidly at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma with a pair of dramatic operas performed in just one evening.