To mark the centenary of Giacomo Puccini’s death, National Opera will produce his one-act opera Suor Angelica this week.
Puccini, the third most performed opera composer in the world, wrote three of the top 10 operas: La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. The lesser-known Suor Angelica, only an hour long, is part of Il trittico, a triptych of short operas that premièred at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1918. Puccini considered this sentimental melodrama, the tragedy of a nun who loses her son, to be the finest of the three; the score is delicately beautiful, and it contains one of 20th-century opera’s most famous arias.
“Sister Angelica,” explains director Rachel Hogan, “is a woman who was admitted to a convent when she gave birth to an illegitimate child. She is actually a princess, who brought shame on her family. Seven years have passed. Her aunt, the matriarch of the family, comes to visit her; she wants to sign away her inheritance to her sister, who has just become engaged to somebody who is willing to overlook the shame that Angelica brought on the family. What Angelica is desperate to hear about is what happened to her child. In fact, even though she is a devout woman, what really keeps her going isn’t God; it’s the thought of this boy, and the hope that one day she will see him again. The aunt gives her the bad news that the son died two years ago.
“At this point, Angelica’s world just falls away, underneath her. She has lost everything. She has a vision of her child in heaven, and comes to the decision that she can be with him if she just dies. She is very good with herbalism, and she makes a poison, and takes her own life. As she’s dying, she suddenly remembers that suicide is a mortal sin, and she won’t go to heaven to be with her son; she’ll go instead to hell. But all the nuns come and pray with her to the Virgin. A miracle happens at the end: she does indeed go to heaven, and becomes reunited with her son.”
Canberra-born soprano Emma Mauch will sing Suor Angelica – her first lead rôle. She graduated from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, then worked as a chorister for Opera Australia, West Australian Opera, and Grange Park Opera (UK). She returned to Canberra in 2013 to train as a midwife and to be closer to her family. That profession gives her insight into the profound emotions associated with motherhood.
“I have a very privileged rôle as a midwife,” Ms Mauch said. “I get to witness women become mothers all the time…
“In this scenario, what should have been this joyous thing of her becoming a mother is torn away from her, twisted and darkened, and becomes this awful thing that she then becomes completely tormented for by years. She never ever gets to follow through and experience that joy, and so she has to live it out in her mind.
“Certainly, my experience as a midwife of witnessing the absolute joy of that moment has definitely influenced the way that I express the opposite of that, and her loss.”
The high emotion of the piece makes it vocally challenging, Ms Mauch says. “Even when she’s singing these beautifully lyrical phrases … it’s always with this undercurrent of absolute desperation for this woman who just desperately wants to see her baby, wants to see her child.”
Sometimes, Ms Mauch admits, becoming involved with the character and the storyline can be challenging; she has to “step back a little bit, and allow the music to tell some of the story, so that I don’t get too caught up in the emotions of it, because I wouldn’t be able to sing otherwise”.
The most celebrated aria in the opera is the heart-rending ‘Senza mamma’, sung when Suor Angelica learns of her son’s death, and resolves on suicide.
“Her whole worldview has completely changed in that moment,” Ms Mauch said. “It’s extremely dark to begin with; she starts talking about what her child looked like in death, and having this horrific mental imagery of what that was, of this child that she never ever got to know… She has this vision of him speaking to her from heaven, almost like a religious trance or ecstasy. She can absolutely suddenly now see the path to being reunited with her son…
“It’s quite a big [aria] to navigate, but beautifully written, and the harmonies are just gorgeous… But the undercurrent of it is so extreme and so intense. It’s really satisfying as a performer to sing because it’s got so many layers to it.”
In 2020, Ms Hogan made a commitment to herself that she would bring more music into her life. She teaches singing at Girls’ Grammar, and performed in National Opera’s gala concert in 2022. The company, founded by baritone Peter Coleman-Wright AO in 2020, aims to nurture Canberra talent.
“I’m thrilled that these opportunities exist for younger singers, the people who are just starting out, or for people like me, who disappeared from the arena for a little while to do something else, and who are working their way slowly back into having more music in their life again,” Ms Mauch said.
Suor Angelica will be performed at the Albert Hall – which was not designed as an opera house. Ms Hogan has turned that to her advantage; she says her staging is simple but intimate. “Everything is up close and personal.”
There is no set, only a fountain. The piece is staged “almost in the round”: instead of using the stage (which Ms Hogan says is not very good), the performance takes place on the floor of the Albert Hall, the audience sitting around the performance space, “very close to the action, to give it intimacy and connection. We want the audience to feel like they are immersed in this little convent world…”
As a result, the opera’s final scene, Ms Hogan says, is “quite a visceral experience. You really will be surrounded by the sound.”
Some critics have found Suor Angelica’s ending sentimental and melodramatic; how does Ms Hogan make the religious elements of the opera work for a modern, largely secular, audience?
“That was pretty much the first question I asked as a director,” Ms Hogan says. “The deus ex machina – God (the Blessed Virgin, in this case) – comes in and fixes everything. Some people, of course, would completely buy that, but not necessarily all the audience.”
Her solution was to take a holistic approach. “It becomes less about what God’s doing, and more about different was of connecting.”
By focusing on the theme of connection and unification, she aims to transcend traditional religious interpretations, and make the narrative more universally resonant.
The convent becomes a microcosm of the world, existing within the context of nature and society, and ultimately of the cosmos.
“The resolution of the piece is when all the things that are separate come together to become whole again,” Ms Hogan said. “The mother is reunited with her child. The female is reunited with the male. The nuns are an all-female society. At the end, suddenly, we have male voices. They are supposed to be angels, male and female, in balance together. It takes on a more mystical parable: the unification of opposites, the healing of things that are broken, the endless flow of life.”
Ms Hogan believes this production will be a unique experience. “These women are very, very good singers; it does sound fantastic… I think people will be viscerally affected by the performances, and the immersion. It’s like a different world, a different experience – but an experience that is ultimately universal: the desire to be whole again and feel connected.”
Suor Angelica, National Opera, Albert Hall, Thursday 7th (6pm to 7pm) and Sunday 10th March (2pm to 3pm, and 6pm to 7pm). Tickets: $55 to $10. Thursday sold out. https://nationalopera.org.au/suor/.
