The UM Opera Theater will perform “Suor Angelica” and “Gianni Schicchi” at 8 p.m. Feb. 7-9, 2 p.m. Feb. 9-10, and 6:30 p.m. Feb. 10 at the MCT Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets range in price from $12-$25, and are on sale now through the MCT Box Office. Call 728-PLAY for more information.
You might have seen the video on YouTube: A fidgeting, doughy phone salesman with bad teeth gets up on stage in front of Simon Cowell and a live, national TV audience on the show, “Britain’s Got Talent.” He announces he’s going to sing opera. Cowell and the other judges roll their eyes. Then he sings, his powerful voice rising to a high climax as the crowd roars in shocked awe. The performance brings one of the judges to tears, and leaves Cowell practically speechless.
As the world soon learned, that common-looking man, Paul Potts, had a truly uncommon voice. He went on to win the entire competition, and has since recorded a CD and been offered numerous professional singing engagements.
The music that Paul Potts sang in that appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent” was “Nessun Dorma,” an aria from Puccini’s last (unfinished) opera, “Turandot.” It is an incredibly compact piece of music, usually clocking in at less than three minutes. Yet in that time, the music touches on so many emotions: longing and resolve, restlessness and awakening and unparalleled romantic fervor.
That is the genius of Puccini, the characteristic that makes him, in the eyes of many fans, the greatest Italian opera composer in history. Where Giuseppi Verdi was the master of heroic song, Puccini could jerk a tear out of a stone. He could also whip up a fearsome climax, and weave interlocking melodies that seem to go on forever.
“Puccini manages to get right to the heart of things,” said Anne Basinski, a voice professor at the University of Montana. “His music has a power that can really leave people breathless.”
Alas, it can do the same to singers. Those big, upwardly soaring melodies do not come easily to any voice, especially at concert volume. Adding to the challenge, Puccini tended to write dense accompaniment to his melodies - turgid instrumental backdrops that can bury small voices.
Hence why you don’t usually hear young singers belting out “Nessun Dorma” or other Puccini arias at recitals. Basinski said most singers - even great young talents - are ill-equipped to perform Puccini’s music before their mid-20s. Some of the composer’s more challenging roles don’t even often fit voices 10 years older than that.
“If a student singer tries to do too much too soon, they can do harm to their voices; and we obviously don’t want that to be a consequence, ever,” said Basinski. “Particularly with men: Because of the changes that their voices go through in adolescence, a 19-year-old guy is basically dealing with a 7-year-old voice.
It takes time to control that and let it settle and learn just the right equation of muscle, resonance, energy.”
Those facts create something of a Catch-22 for Basinski and her fellow professors at the University of Montana. Local opera aficionados beg to hear Puccini; but most of the time, the right voices at the right level of maturity simply aren’t among the students - most of whom are undergraduates - at the University of Montana.
“When most people think of opera, (Puccini’s) melodies and operas are the ones we think of,” said Basinski. “He is the master of the heart-on-the-sleeve, beautiful, big tune. But all of that really asks a lot of the cast, so we can’t always pull it off.”
Right now happens to be one of those rare times when Puccini is possible in Missoula, said Basinski. A bumper crop of precocious singers - women, in particular - has blossomed in the UM music department. So, with help from the MCT Center for the Performing Arts and UM orchestra conductor Luis Millan, Basinski and her colleagues decided to take a chance on not one, but two Puccini operas: “Suor Angelica” and “Gianni Schicchi.”
The two operas form two-thirds of a trio of short operas by the composer, known collectively as “Il Trittico” (The Triptych). Premiered in 1918 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the three operas were originally intended to be performed together, all in one night. But Basinski said the two operas chosen for this weekend’s performances should provide a healthy taste of all the attributes that makes Puccini such a beloved composer, without exhausting audiences or singers.
“These two operas make such a nice compliment to each other,” said Basinski. “You get some really beautiful, romantic melodies in 'Suor Angelica,’ and some great comedy in 'Gianni Schicchi,’ but it doesn’t drag on too long.”
“Suor Angelica” is undoubtedly the more purely beautiful of the two operas. Set in a convent in the Tuscan city of Siena, the opera follows the tale of a nun, Sister Angelica, who longs to hear from her estranged family and know the fate of her illegitimate son, whom she hasn’t seen in seven years. Angelica’s aunt arrives unannounced, and ... well, to explain anything more would give away the essence of the tragedy.
Suffice to say that the drama leads, as so often in Puccini’s operas, to a climactic aria drenched in regret and longing, one that challenges even the greatest of singers with its long phrases and high notes.
“It is a big role, and it asks a lot vocally even though it’s in a short opera,” said Basinski. “It definitely takes a voice that has settled.”
But as fortunate would have it, two such voices can now be found among the student ranks at UM; thus the role is being split between Heidi Ames and Veronica Turner, each of whom will perform the role of Angelica three times this weekend.
If “Suor Angelica” sounds a bit heavy, worry not, said Basinski. The second half of the program is pure joy.
In fact, “Gianni Schicchi” counts as Puccini’s only true comedic opera. The story follows the tribulations of a greedy family who has found out that a recently deceased and quite wealthy relative has left them out of his will. The titular character, Gianni Schicchi, comes in and saves the day.
It may sound like light fun, but “Gianni Schicchi” is a complex machine under the hood (it is also the vehicle for one of Puccini’s most famous big melodies, “O Mio Babbino Caro”).
Performing the opera is no easy feat. Basinski recounts visiting recently with Raymond Gniewek, a former concertmaster with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York. When Basinski told him that her students were performing “Gianni Schicchi,” he had two words: “That’s difficult.”
“The music and action is fast and furious and demands a lot of really complex synchronization in the ensemble, both instrumentally and vocally,” said Basinski. “There are lots of virtuosic little touches that have to be tossed off with brio. So they’ve been working extremely hard.”
Such are the challenges even with the “little” Puccini operas; but Basinski believes the student forces are up to the test. Following on the success of the UM production of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” two years ago - which won first prize for student productions in a nationwide competition run by the National Opera Association - Basinski said the time is right to press on into more challenging territory.
“There is a lot of interest and love for this kind of opera in town,” said Basinski. “The voice program is definitely growing at the university, and so we’re just looking forward to building on every success and challenging ourselves and our students.”
Entertainer editor Joe Nickell can be reached at 523-5358 or at jnickell@missoulian.com.
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