|
The Seven Deadly Sins
Composed by Kurt Weill
Texts by Bertolt Brecht
and
Suor Angelica
Composed by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Giovacchino Forzano
Directed by David Walsh
Thursday, November 8, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 9, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 10, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 11, 1:30 p.m.
Ted Mann Concert Hall
Seven Deadly Sins Synopsis
Seven Deadly Sins depicts the rags-to-riches tale of Anna, a young girl from a small town in Louisiana who rises through the ranks from stripper/cabaret dancer to show-girl to model/actress. In the process of making a career, her natural charm and beauty are ruthlessly expunged and replaced with a kind of cold, hard and artificial glamour. It is the kind of journey that Hollywood makes famous or infamous depending on your point of view.
In the original version, the story takes place in the early 1930s. It is the time of the Great Depression, when the so-called American Dream (in which wealth plus material success equals happiness) has gone belly up. Nevertheless, even today the myth persists. America continues to be fascinated and tempted by the idea of “making it.” This delusion has its parallel in the world of theatre by the idea of “making it” as a showbiz star. So these two worlds—the “real” world and the “artistic” world—mirror each other and, indeed, merge in this story.
This is a story of the destruction of innocence, idealism and romance. The best instincts of human nature—for example, openness, generosity, and sensuality—are perverted or discredited in a highly cinical way. The moral of the story is this: if you want to “make it,” you have to learn to “play the game,” often through blatant hypocrisy and exploitation of everyone with whom you come in contact. Although the different cities mentioned in this opera (properly it should be characterized as a “ballet with song”) represent different stations on this delusory pilgrimage, in fact every city contains all of the vices.
Our production will treat the material in a contemporary fashion but, frankly, the clichés are timeless. Plus ca change!
—David Walsh
Suor Angelica Synopsis
Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica) was part of Giacomo Puccini’s so-called Trittico (Tryptich) of one-act operas—a project which began in 1912, but was not completed until the premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in December 1918. Suor Angelica has seldom been performed together with the other two operas of this Trittico. This is not surprising because its theme is so very different from the other pieces. In my view, the opera has never been given its full due as a unique work in Puccini’s oeuvre.
The opera distills mysticism, the supernatural, religious ecstasy, sexual repression and moral authoritarianism into a taut, 50-minute psychodrama about desire, guilt and punishment for mortal sins. The piece represents Puccini’s strongest attack on the power of the church and organized religion to subject individuals who contravene their moral codes to horrific degradation and humiliation. Yet it also makes a strong statement for the redeeming power of true faith. In the final analysis, however, it remains a highly ambivalent work. One has to question whether the belief in a benevolent and merciful divine power, transcending all the perversions of social, religious and moral “ethics,” has truly been rewarded. Or perhaps the “Miracle” at the end of the opera is just another Puccini fantasy, representing a yearning for a utopian world in which genuine Grace and Mercy might actually exist.
In order to avoid any tendencies toward a sentimentalized “Italianate” interpretation of the opera, and to enable both the performers and the audience to access the true spiritual qualities of the work, I have chosen to take the piece entirely out of its Western religious/ operatic context. It will be treated as a parable, with a minimum of symbolic stage props and, for the most part, a very restricted and stylized form of movement. It is time for this opera to be treated as a true 20th-century work of art, commenting ironically, and with some despair, on the demise of romance and compassion in contemporary society.
Suor Angelica was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, on December 14, 1918. Of the three operas in his Trittico, it was Puccini’s reputed favorite.
—David Walsh |
