Conference Agenda

The central problem of Suor Angelica in the critical and analytical literature has long been that of how to interpret its conclusion: what to make of this supernatural miracle-ending in which the Virgin Mary and a child—apparently Angelica’s own child, who was supposed to have died years earlier—appear, bathed in bright light, before the dying Angelica. Is this really happening, “in” the story and thus visible to all (both the audience and the other characters on stage), or is it all happening inside Angelica’s head, visible only to her and the all-seeing audience, a hallucination of a dying woman triggered by a poison concocted from flowers and self-administered just moments before? The scene seems out of place within the contexts of Puccini’s own output, the aesthetics of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century veristic Italian opera, and a modernist era ruled by skepticism, nihilism, and disenchantment.

Aspects of the opera’s dramaturgy and musical form suggest that there are other open questions about this ending and the piece’s overall meaning and message. Grounded in an analysis of large-scale musical structure using the schema known as “rotational form,” this paper confronts the piece’s formal architecture as a container for generic allusions, figures, topics, and tropes, in the service of a hermeneutic reading and thus of a fusion—still uncommon in Puccini studies—of close analysis and interpretation. It addresses form and design; issues of genre and topic, especially in two key scenes for Angelica; the use of motive and tonality to signify dramaturgical relationships; Puccini’s well-known penchant for depicting “place” and how this informs an understanding of the piece; and, finally, the relationship of Suor Angelica to the other two operas of Puccini’s Il Trittico.

The paper uses these and other of the piece’s musical and organizational aspects, all considered holistically and in terms of a complex network of interrelationships, to suggest a particular interpretation—in which the piece gradually coalesces into a grand, spectacularly staged revelation of its meaning and fundamental message—that has not previously been considered in the published literature.

Something peculiar happens at the end of Gianni Schicchi, the last panel of Puccini’s late-period triptych of one-acts. His devilish plan successfully enacted and his daughter’s dowry assured, the character Schicchi approaches the footlights—still within the opera, but also after the end of the opera—to address the audience in a spoken licenza. As he crosses the threshold from drama to theater, the radiant G-flat major of the lovers’ union recedes from fortissimo to piano, pianissimo, ritardando, into some dynamic and temporal and spatial nowhere. Who or what is Schicchi here? An actor? A narrator? An author? From where is he addressing us? And for that matter, from when?

This is a rather extreme transition, but it is not different in kind from several others that connect, in various ways, the stylistically diverse episodes of this sometimes jarringly discontinuous opera. In this paper, I seek to add to Andrew Davis’s 2010 account of these transitions an explanation for why they are there in the first place. Drawing on the work of Gerard Genette (1983), I posit Schicchi as a “focal character,” that is, a character through which the drama is seen, or through whose psyche it is presented. Understanding Schicchi as controlling, to an extent, what we see, and when, and in what light, provides a compelling raison d’être for the opera’s experimental treatment of narrative space and time. If, as Davis has shown, Gianni Schicchi is an essay in presenting narrative simultaneities in musical succession, the reason for this is that Schicchi delivers the story, bit by bit, as one would give evidence in a deposition. Indeed, this is a deposition: “Let me tell you how it really happened,” Schicchi says, hoping to curry favor with an audience-cum-jury who holds the power to exonerate or to send him back to hell. My analysis centers on the last three episodes of the opera’s five-part finale, whose sophisticated use of dissolves makes its focalized filmic temporality palpable.

Above all, verismo opera is known for depicting ordinary people in their everyday lives. But verismo operas are also musically distinct from their mid-century forebears (Corazzol 1993, Giger 2007). Rather than adhering to the conventional formulae of the previous generation, verismo composers focused on dramatic immediacy and emotional intensity, employing forceful climax-building as one of the defining characteristics of the genre (Lee 2020).

In this paper, I probe climax building as a signature feature of verismo opera, exemplified through analysis of the end of Act 1 of Puccini’s Turandot from a large-scale perspective. Under the lens of climax building, the multiple numbers which conclude the act can be illuminated as a series of climaxes creating a compound form. Specifically, I analyze the last section of Calaf’s ternary-form aria “Non piangere, Liù” and the ensemble finale as three climaxes developed from a single thematic unit through a teleological process; this reading overcomes the typical separation between the aria and ensemble finale, emphasizing the increasing urgency and intensity throughout.

Dramatically, my climax reading aligns with the emerging emphasis on Calaf at the end of Act 1. Although introduced in absentia by other characters at the beginning of the act, Calaf gradually asserts himself and his identity as a nobleman and an ambitious suitor. In Climax 1, his main concern is that his resolution to win Turandot might separate him from Timur and Liù. Yet in Climax 2, Calaf overtly expresses his attraction to and determination to win the princess. This attitude is explicit in Climax 3 as he calls Turandot’s name and strikes the gong. Through this process, the originally plaintive sentiment of his aria gives way to his expression of morale and confidence; Calaf’s rising prominence thus plays out in the climax succession’s teleological process. Consequently, the ensemble finale’s ending, with the Herculean double highpoint, presages the upcoming battle royale in Act 2 between the most cutthroat tyrant and her most audacious challenger.