Puccini’s Il trittico Top 5 Musical Moments 

Il tabarro

In his Shakespearean revenge monologue, the bargeman Michele lists all the possible men who could be cheating with his wife Giorgetta. When he reaches Luigi’s name, we hear the pizzicato bassline associated with the lovers, musically hinting at the truth. Michele’s climactic outburst of vengeance is sung on the jagged theme representing the cloak that will hide his crime.

Suor Angelica

Sister Angelica’s cold and cruel aunt—simply referred to as “the Princess”—describes the supernatural communion she has with the spirit of her departed sister, Angelica’s mother. Beginning deep in the contralto range, her vocal line traces an ethereal ascending figure that rises like a specter. In the final measures, the Princess shames her niece with stinging cries of “Atone!”

Suor Angelica

After learning that her child died two years earlier, Angelica delivers the opera’s most devastating number. She laments her dead son in mournfully descending phrases, her voice gradually soaring upward as she asks when she’ll be able to join him in heaven. During the last passage, when she begs the boy to speak to her, Angelica borrows the mystical motive from the Princess’s aria.

Gianni Schicchi

Rinuccio’s ode to Florence takes the form of a Tuscan stornello folksong. His sweeping tenor line conjures a glorious skyline of towers and palazzos, and he praises the great minds the city attracted (Gianni Schicchi among them). Halfway through, the orchestra teases the opening bars of “O mio babbino caro”—the only other time we hear this iconic melody in the opera.

Gianni Schicchi

In her brief but unforgettable aria, Lauretta begs her father Gianni Schicchi to help the Donati family so she can marry Rinuccio. This number was famously featured on the soundtrack to the 1985 film A Room with a View. The movie showcases many of the Florentine sites mentioned in the opera—including the bridge over the Arno where Lauretta melodramatically threatens to drown herself.

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