Puccini’s Il trittico (The Triptych) is a difficult work to get right, but this brand-new production by Opera Australia comes out in flying colours.

Lauren Fagan as Angelica in Opera Australia’s Suor Angelica (Il trittico). Photo © Keith Saunders

This is due largely to Artistic Director Jo Davies’ decision to commission a different director for the three operas comprising the work – the thriller Il tabarro (The Cloak), the lyrical Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica) and the comedy Gianni Schicchi.  

It was a masterstroke, with Constantine Costi (Il tabarro), Imara Savage (Suor Angelica) and Shaun Rennie (Gianni Schicchi) able to give their respective operas their undivided attention, while the task of creating an onstage environment to accommodate all three fell to set and costume designer Michael Hankin and lighting designer Verity Hampson.

More often than not, a single director is tasked with staging all three operas comprising the work, usually creating one world in which to shoehorn all the operas, or trying to find a common thread that explains why such disparate works should occupy the same bill.  The result is frequently monotonous or, at best, leaves one of the three operas feeling out...