Puccini wrote passion and pain like no other, as the first two operas – Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica – of his triptych indisputably demonstrate. Welsh National Opera’s co-production with Scottish Opera, of the David McVicar staging first seen in Glasgow last year, finds the threatened company in fighting form – it needs to be – and pulling no emotional punches. Conductor laureate Carlo Rizzi is in his element, eliciting lustrous playing from the WNO orchestra and attention to the score’s descriptive detail, conveying Wagnerian drama and moments of suspense that might be from film music.
In Il Tabarro, the tragic loss of a baby lies at the heart of the breakdown of barge-owner Michele’s marriage to Giorgietta. The outcome is his murder of her young lover. The Parisian canal setting is all of a piece with Puccini’s touch of Grand Guignol, along with a Zeffirellian take on verismo, and the angry surges of tension are sustained to the bitter end.
