In a year packed with Puccini, as the world marks the centenary of his death, Melbourne Opera offers a gala that balances some of the composer’s best known and less familiar work.

The Puccini Gala’s first half is a concert performance of the one-act opera Suor Angelica. Usually presented with two other short operas, known collectively as Il trittico, it’s rarely seen in Melbourne so a welcome addition to what has mostly been a parade of Puccini favourites in 2024.

Suor Angelica is set in a convent, where the nuns and novices’ conversation about simple pleasures is disrupted by the arrival of a princess. She is the aunt and guardian of orphaned Sister Angelica, who was sent to the convent after having an illegitimate child. Their bitter conversation has tragic consequences.

Helena Dix (centre) in Melbourne Opera’s Puccini Gala. Photo © Robin Halls.

The cast, including female members of the Melbourne Opera Chorus, perform on the set of the company’s concurrent La bohème – which is fine except the wall of dirty, broken windows overlooking a backdrop of Melbourne’s skyline seems all wrong for a convent (a 17th century one at that)....