This weekend, the stage of the Evelyn Smith Music Theatre on the Tempe campus was invaded by singing nuns and conniving gold-diggers.
Hundreds turned out last weekend to watch these characters in “A Puccini Double Bill,” an operatic performance presented by the Herberger College of the Arts.
The show consisted of two bite-size operas by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.
Although the operas were in Italian, audience members could follow the plot by reading an English translation projected onto a screen above the stage.
The first part of the show was “Suor Angelica,” a tragic opera about a woman forced to enter a convent after the birth of her illegitimate son.
At the curtain call on Saturday, audience members jumped to their feet to applaud Jennifer Allen, the vocal performance doctoral candidate who played the title character.
“Suor Angelica” was played in other performances throughout the weekend by Jennifer Jones, also a vocal performance doctoral candidate.
Alyssa Chiarello, a musical theater junior who performed in the chorus, praised the opera’s unique musical qualities.
“Puccini’s music?is composed with intricate?details?of drama that?compliment his libretto [story] very nicely and help move the plot forward,” Chiarello said.
The emotional, energetic score was challenging for both vocal and orchestral performers, said Jana Minov, a doctoral candidate who conducted the orchestra for “Suor Angelica.”
“It is just fantastic music that all performers simply love,” she said.
After an intermission, the performance resumed with another short opera.
“Gianni Schicchi” is one of the few comic operas that Puccini ever wrote, Minov said.
The piece portrays a scheming family literally crawling over the corpse of Buoso Donati in an effort to cash in on his riches.
The family enlists the help of the title character to rewrite Donati’s will so that they will obtain a sizable inheritance.
The emotional climax of the opera came with the performance of the famous aria “O Mio Babbino Caro” by Lauretta, Schicchi’s daughter.
Laura Black and Allison Stanford, both graduate students in opera performance, shared the role of Lauretta last weekend.
The opera ends in a twist, as Gianni Schicchi tricks his way into a sizeable chunk of the inheritance.
“The comic aspect of the opera was done really well,” said Zo Manfredi, a graduate student in violin performance who was in attendance.
Although the performances of “A Puccini Double Bill” concluded on Sunday, musical theater fans can catch another piece performed by Herberger students in late April.
“Sunday in the Park with George” is a musical about the life of pointillist painter Georges Seurat.
Student tickets for the performance will cost $7.
Reach the reporter at erin.hutchinson@asu.edu.
