“This production of Il Tabarro was more than just an opera it was an experience, and one which I’d happily repeat soon.“
Julia Newbould
Four harbour lights shining
Sydney Maritime Museum – Capenteria
Cost Free –
Four days only 9-13 January
LIVESTREAM
This event will also be available to watch via livestream on Friday 12 January as part of
Sydney Festival’s AT HOME digital program .
Of all the offerings for the Sydney Festival, this was the one I was most looking forward to and it met my high expectations. On a perfect warm Sydney summer night, the air was still, seagulls were flying overhead, the harbour was magically lit, and the opera was a delight. It was fresh, it was engaging. For those who love opera, it was a true treat, and for those who were experiencing it for the first time, it was a lovely introduction.
Billed as a nautical noir opera under the stars and on the harbour, Puccini’s one-act opera Il Tabarro is set on a boat in the Seine. In this production Darling Harbour offered the maritime backdrop onboard The Carpentaria, a historic lightship built in 1917, the same year that Il Tabarro was finished. The era was faithful but the placement and production were a little more Australian in delivery. The Cape Green Lighthouse, another part of the Museum, was also used in the opera, as was a small boat sailing around The Carpentaria.
According to director Constantine Costi, “Puccini was particularly concerned with capturing the sea-soaked setting aboard a barge on the water. The composer explained, ‘Lady Seine should be the true protagonist of the drama.’ So, we are absolutely delighted to be staging tonight’s opera on the waters by the Australian National Maritime Museum.”
Before the opera began, the audience was treated to an accordion player in a Breton stripe and beret evoking the atmosphere of Giacomo Puccini’s French setting. Her jaunty tunes and manner quickly took us to France.
At just 60 mins duration, Il Tabarro is not often presented on its own. It is the first opera of a trilogy – Il Trittico. The other operas are Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi.
As a dramatic opera this lives up to the love, betrayal, and murder that so many of the classics contain.
Each of the operas in the trilogy has a great loss at its heart. In this one, Giorgetta (Olivia Cranwell) has lost a child and in the aftermath has also fallen out of love with her much older husband Michele (Simon Meadows). She has a lover, Luigi (James Egglestone), a worker on her husband’s barge. The lovers plan to meet late at night with her signalling the coast is clear by lighting a match. However, Michele unknowingly lights a pipe and foils the lover’s plot. Consumed with jealousy Michele murders Luigi.
Il Tabarro covers just one night of the life of the river barge workers on the Seine. We meet other barge workers Talpa (Stephen Marsh), Frugola (Syrah Torii) and Tinca (Joshua Mortaon-Galea). Their lives are hard and they seek happiness where they can – with drink or love. Frugola dreams of a little house in the country, Tinca just drinks to avoid thinking and Giorgetta dreams of going back to her old home.
Presented in partnership with the Victorian Opera, this production has Simon Bruckard conducting his orchestra from a plastic walled stage on the water from which sound comes through clear and sharp.
The Victorian Opera singers were all in fine voice. Olivia Cranwell and John Egglestone as the doomed lovers were in fine voice and delivered strong performances, as did baritone Simon Meadows as Michele. Meadows will be reprising his role in the full-three part opera
for the Australian Opera in July. And Constantine Costi will one again direct the opera – but without the harbour.
Giorgetta and Luigi’s duet is the highlight of the opera for me “E ben alter il mio sogno”. It was very familiar to me growing up as the theme song used by John Cargher’s Singers of Renown program – a favourite of my father. The song is about the longing for a life back on the land – in the town where Giorgetta was born – a life away from the drudgery of the docks and the barge.
There is also a delightful song near the beginning of the opera for Puccini fans which refers to the story of “Mimi” and has a refrain from his earlier opera La Boheme.
This production of Il Tabarro was more than just an opera it was an experience, and one which I’d happily repeat soon. For those who missed the live performances there is a livestream on Friday February 12. And for those who have had their appetites whetted by Il Tabarro, look out for the Australian Opera’s Il Trittico in Sydney in July.
Four harbour lights shining for this sublime festival offering.
Julia Newbould, Theatre Now
