Photo, Mark Allan

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Royal Albert Hall, London

December 1918, Metropolitan Opera, New York: the premiere of Puccini’s Il trittico (Suor Angelica coming between Il tabarro and Gianni Schicchi).

October 1919, Vienna State Opera: the premiere of Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten.

It was the latter’s composer-arranged Symphonic Fantasy, with no room for Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s libretto, that opened the evening – powerful, mystical, strange impressions – a subtly shaded account, with interjective detail, from the LSO and Antonio Pappano, a stream of consciousness utilising the full force of a large orchestra (for the opera itself and I assume retained for this Fantasy). But, musically, despite performance-excellence, it felt too selective from what is a substantial score, and at twenty minutes it was shorter than the interval (something I should have switched off, one long contrivance of reminders and over-selling, with information on a loop).

Puccini knew how to paint pictures, to plonk the listener dead-centre of place and circumstance, the music is enough; so, for Suor Angelica we’re in a convent, secluded, the outside world unknown, individual and interactive emotions vividly drawn as the drama develops and revelations admitted. You really couldn’t have a better conductor for this repertoire than Pappano – embracing, perceptive and inspiring – and in this rendition, following one a couple of days ago at the Edinburgh Festival, the sense of rightness on behalf of the music was palpable, the LSO alert to every nuance, and with a strong cast led by Carolina López Moreno as the titular Sister Angelica, wonderful in her disclosures (she has an illegitimate son) when passions increase. News arrives that the boy has died; she commits suicide, but is Heaven-bound, where she will be with him.

Now, if I’m honest, Suor Angelica doesn’t move me to the same extent as, say, La bohème, Fanciulla, and Turandot, but if I may end with an anecdote, which is several years ago I took a lady-friend to Covent Garden for Il trittico (stall seats, I was reviewing), Tony Pappano conducting, and at the end of Suor Angelica I looked at Sal, and there she was – in tears, mascara running down her face, with eyes revealing her as helpless. The power of Puccini.

Carolina López Moreno…. Sister Angelica
Kseniia Nikolaieva…. Princess
Elena Zilio…. Monitress
Angela Schisano…. Mistress of the novices
Sarah Dufresne…. Sister Genovieffa
Monika-Evelin Liiv…. Abbess
Tiffin Boys Choir
London Symphony Chorus

BBC Proms 2025 – Photo for London Symphony Orchestra – Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Richard Strauss and Puccini: Die Frau ohne Schatten (Symphonic Fantasy) and Suor Angelica.

“Two of the 20th-century’s most powerful operas come together in a concert by Sir Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra. Motherhood – longed-for or feared, inevitable or impossible – is the thread binding the devastating melodrama of Puccini’s one-act Suor Angelica to Strauss’s darkly ambiguous fable Die Frau ohne Schatten (‘The Woman without a Shadow’) each a battle for humanity and its future. Soprano Carolina López Moreno stars as Puccini’s tragic Sister Angelica, whose past conceals a terrible secret.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002h14z

LSO – live on Stage+ – Antonio Pappano conducts Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel & Ein Heldenleben, with Lisa Batiashvili playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto K219.

London Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall – Antonio Pappano conducts William Walton’s First Symphony, and Yunchan Lim plays Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. Live broadcast on WQXR (New York public radio).

Sir Antonio Pappano records Puccini’s Turandot for Warner Classics – with Sondra Radvanovsky, Jonas Kaufmann, Ermonela Jaho and Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.