Puccini’s music, often taken for granted, is best displayed when his operas are performed with the instrumentalists on stage, as the Academy of Vocal Arts did in this double bill.

Suor Angelica and Il Tabarro. Operas by Giacomo Puccini; Christofer Macatsoris, conductor. Academy of Vocal Arts production January 21-22 at Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center, Broad and Spruce Sts.; January 26, 2011 at Centennial Hall, Haverford School, Haverford, Pa. (215) 735-1685 or www.avaopera.com.

Justice for Puccini

Puccini’s music is so well known that sometimes we overlook its great variety.

While it’s true that there’s a recognizable sound to Puccini’s melodies, particularly those he wrote for his pathetic female leads, that can’t be said about his orchestrations. Puccini created lush sounds in distinctive modes, depending on the setting of each opera.

For example, his Fanciulla del West uses open harmonies to evoke California’s wide-open spaces during the Gold Rush. We all know and love the Orientalism of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and the exotic, mysterious sound of Turandot.

The distinctiveness and the subtlety of Puccini’s orchestral writing are best displayed when his operas are performed with the instrumentalists on stage. In those cases details emerge that might get overlooked when the orchestra is down in a pit.

This was especially true in the Academy of Vocal Arts double bill of Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica, where the excellent orchestra trained by conductor Christofer Macatsoris was especially expressive. The undulating suggestion of lapping water set the mood for this story of a barge owner on the Seine, his unfaithful wife and a stevedore. Then, in Suor Angelica, Puccini’s ethereal music for the orchestra and chorus placed us in the convent where Sister Angelica gradually emerged as the central character.

Angelica was a member of a distinguished family who gave birth to a child out of wedlock. To punish her, the family put her in a convent. When her aunt comes to visit and discloses that Angelica’s baby died, the distraught woman takes poison so she can go be reunited with her child in heaven. The twist is that by committing suicide she has damned herself– although Puccini’s music suggests a happier ending.

Tabarro received a solid performance by AVA’s resident artists, and especially baritone Eric Dubin at the Saturday night performance that I attended. Suor Angelica featured the powerful singing of Margaret Mezzacappa as the vengeful aunt. (Although the AVA uses alternating casts, Mezzacappa sang all the performances because, after all, very few mezzos could equal her presence and her singing.)

A special treat was the Angelica of Corinne Winters, a fourth-year artist who most recently sang the lead role in AVA’s recent world premiere of The Scarlet Letter. Saturday night she was properly timid and intimidated and then grew to display defiance and strength as her voice soared magnificently.♦

WRTI-FM (90.1) will broadcast the AVA performance of Suor Angelica on Sunday, January 30 at 3 p.m.