Rinuccio and Lauretta are free to marry, and Schicchi asks the audience to be his jury and exonerate him with their applause. This he accomplishes while at the same time managing to secure some of the prime assets for himself and the young lovers. A sometimes screeching social satire as well as a macabre comedy full of lessons about the failings of human nature, this opera with its drumbeat plot works on the complicity created between. Though they consider him an inferior, they employ Shicchi to create a new will. Gianni Schicchi is an opera buffa featuring a type of character common in commedia dell’arte, that of the clever servant, with Arlequin as the archetype. When old Buoso dies, leaving all his possessions to the Church, the disinherited Donatis are desperate and have no idea how they might improve their situation. They despise him for his low birth and coarseness, and are opposed to their young Rinuccio marrying his daughter, Lauretta. His resourcefulness contrasts with the lack of imagination displayed by the members of the aristocratic Donati family. Gianni Shicchi is one of operas most lovable rogues, a man with a cunning mind and a taste for larceny. Set at the dawn of the Renaissance, the opera references some of its early masters and patrons, e.g., the Medici and Giotto. The greedy, snobbish relatives of a rich patriarch, recently deceased, are forced to rely on a ”new man”, i.e., one from a family with no reputation or wealth, to save them from ruin. Lauretta: “ O mio babbino caro“ "Oh, Papa, please, I beg you.Ĭopyright Kenneth Jakobs 2003 All rights reservedįirst performed in 1918 (at the Metropolitan Opera), just six years before the maestro’s death, Gianni Schicchi is Puccini’s only comedy, and what a brilliant satire it is. This contributes immeasurably to its overall comic effect and entertainment value.įor all but those fluent in Italian, it is impossible to appreciate this opera’s subtle wit and deft characterizations unless performed in a faithful, artful English performing translation. Unlike the standard translation, mine follows the original rhyme scheme. This one-act opera is a small masterpiece of comedy from the greatest musical dramatist. I wave goodbye to you, alas, without my hand” “Farewell, dear Florence, sublime, enchanted land.
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