NOTE: Cast members (listed below) from the towns of: Belfast, Bucksport, Camden, Corinna, Freeport, Fryeburg, Gorham, Lamoine, Lyman, Monroe, New Sweden, Rockland, Saco, Sanford, Scarborough, Searsport, Standish, Vassalboro, Waterville, Westbrook, Windham, Winslow, York; also Lee, Nashua and Rindge, N.H.; Hartford and St. Albans, Vt.; and Ashland, Braintree, Haverhill, Lakeville, and Worcester, Mass.

Love! Trickery! Redemption! – it’s opera!

Once every four years, the University of Southern Maine School of Music and Department of Theatre collaborate on a fully staged opera production. But this March, new audiences and old will be offered a rare opportunity to sample grand opera with a pair of masterful Puccini one-acts: “Suor Angelica,” an exquisite tear-jerker, and “Gianni Schicchi,” a laugh-out-loud comedy.

But a Puccini opera set in Portland? That’s right. Stage director Assunta Kent has moved the setting of one of the operas, “Gianni Schicchi,” from Florence in 1299 to a West End mansion in Portland, Maine in 1927.

“Puccini drew his title character from a shyster condemned to Dante’s “Inferno” and thus set the opera in medieval Florence” explains Kent. “But Gianni’s new job is to ‘adjust’ an old man’s will posthumously for his greedy heirs, who are each illuminated by the property they desire. However, houses in Quintole and land in Empoli provide little insight for Maine audiences, so I have remapped the opera over the Portland area. We all have a sense of the rich older lady who must have the cottage on Peaks Island and the West End “fashionista” who must have the townhouse in Boston. And we fully get the pomposity and delusions of grandeur of the former mayor of Scarborough!”

The young and powerful singers from the USM Opera Worskop -- led by Kent and music director Ellen Chickering -- will perform these two works in English from March 13 – 21 in Russell Hall on the USM Gorham campus. Robert Lehmann will conduct the live orchestra, the largest ever, including a harp. Tickets are $20 for the general public; $14 for seniors, USM employees and alumni; and $10 for students. Call the Theater box office at 780-5151. Advance reservations are required since all seats sell out quickly. The production is sponsored by USM Music patrons.

Curtain times are 7:30 p.m. March 13, 14, 19, 20 and 21; and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 15; and 10 a.m. Tuesday, March 17 for a student matinee (with piano only, no orchestra.)

Plus, the singers will go on tour! At 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 5, the cast, in costume, will perform with the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra in at the Swampscott Performing Arts Center at Swampscott High School in Swampscott, Mass.

“The music for these two operas is some of Puccini's best,” says music director Ellen Chickering, “and it’s melodic and fun! Like Mozart and Verdi, Puccini was a master at creating his characters in the music as well as in the libretto. Each opera's music is perfectly matched to its characters. The music flows and weaves itself from singer to orchestra and back again to create a musical experience that is fulfilling and rewarding -- for those on stage and in the pit, as well as the audience. All are gathered in to a rich artistic happening.”

Set design is by advanced student Allesandra Turati; costume designs for “Suor Angelica” are by Kris Hall, and for “Gianni Schicchi” by Devon Ash. Lighting design is by USM alumnus, J.P. Gagnon.

Originally part of a tryptych inspired by Dante’s “Divine Comedy” -- titled “Il Trittico” which consists of Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi (The Cloak, Sister Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi) -- these one-act operas can be, and often are, performed independently. However, as Kent points out, “Suor Angelica” and “Gianni Schicchi” share several themes and character types underscored by this production’s double-casting. For example, the villainous Princess who comes to wrench away Sister Angelica’s last hopes is shared by two mezzo sopranos – who also sing the comic “bad-guy” role of Zita, the aunt who controls the fortune and marital future of the young lovers in “Schicchi.”

In terms of theme, the operas are a perfectly matched pair. In the tragedy, powerful repressive forces (the Princess with aid from the Abbess) have changed a will, and force our heroine to relinquish her rights. In the comedy, Gianni, a rogue rehabilitated from hell, tricks the greedy forces and redistributes the legacy of a will, giving everyone their due -- plus a welcome comeuppance for the greediest. And, of course, young love prevails!

To look more deeply, Puccini presents an ironic commentary on the nature of heaven and hell: Angelica is driven to suicide to escape her hellish confinement in the peaceful convent, finding redemption only through death and hope for the afterlife; while Gianni wins our indulgence for his legal deception because of its positive outcomes – the heavenly bliss of the young lovers and the demonic frenzies of the scheming relatives in their little self-made hell.

Plot Summaries:
“Suor Angelica” (Sister Angelica) is set in the late 1600s. Angelica has been sequestered in a convent near Siena because she bore an illegitimate child. After seven years with no family contact, one day her cold and controlling aunt, the Princess, arrives to demand that Angelica renounce her share of the family estate to her sister who is being married. When Angelica asks about her child, the Princess brutally recounts her son’s death. Devastated, Angelica signs the document. Once her aunt leaves, she sings her lament (the wrenchingly beautiful “Senza Mama/Without a mother”) and then impulsively takes poison so she may die and rejoin her son. However, she then fears that the mortal sin of suicide may condemn her. She cries out to the Madonna for salvation and, as she dies, receives a vision of the Virgin sending her child to comfort her.

In the rollicking farce, “Gianni Schicchi,” the greedy relatives of the deceased Buoso Donati, led by the elders (Simone and Zita), are horrified to discover that Buoso has left his entire fortune to a monastery in Kennebunkport. In desperation, they turn to wily Gianni Schicchi (whose daughter Lauretta loves Buoso's nephew, Rinuccio) for help in forging a new will. (Lauretta’s plea for Schicchi’s help, “O mio babbino caro,” is one of the most beautiful and recognizable arias in all opera!).

Each relative gives Gianni detailed instructions as to how everything is to be bestowed – plus, they all want the most prized possessions. Rich older Auntie Zita wants the cottage on Peaks Island, the couple with a child wants the camp on Sebago, the pretentious couple with no kids wants the townhouses in Boston, and the drunken brother-in-law wants farmland near his favorite roadhouse in Topsham. To fool the notary, Schicchi dresses up as Buoso and gets into his bed. When the notary arrives, Schicchi dictates a new will, giving each relative a large bequest. But he outwits the greedy elders by granting to Buoso’s “devoted friend, Gianni Schicchi,” the most prized possessions -- an expensive biplane, the warp mills in Westbrook, and the West End mansion -- as a dowry for his daughter to enable her marriage to Rinuccio.

The Cast:
Note: Some of the roles are double cast. Two singers will alternate performances of those roles. Also, some singers appear in BOTH operas.

Performers in “Suor Angelica”:
Alternating the title role of Sister Angelica are Stephanie Gilbert of Vassalboro, and Sarah Mawn of Lakeville, Mass. Sister Genevieve is played by Katherine Hall of Monroe; Sister Osmina by Kristen Stearns of Lyman; and Sister Dolcina by Alauna Butler of Standish.

The Tourieres will be performed by Shannon Connell of Haverhill, Mass., and Kelsey Ray of York. The Novices are Kaitlin McGinley of Lyman, and Molly Massa of Scarborough. The lay sisters are Alicia Culleton of Nashua, N.H., Katelyn Smith of Sanford, Erica Wasil of Braintree, Mass., and Greer Vashon of Waterville.

Alexandra Dietrich of Freeport and Jazmin DeRice of Windham will alternate in the role of La Principessa. Mary Bastoni of Fryeburg, is The Abbess; Rachael Braunstein of Ashland, Mass., is The Monitor; and Christenia Alden-Kinne of Gorham is The Mistress of the Novices. Brandon Johnson of Searsport is the corpse of Buoso Donati; and eight-year-old Sebastian Shames of Westbrook is Sister Angelica's child.

In “Gianni Schicchi”:
The title role of Schicchi will be performed on alternate nights by Daniel Cyr of Bucksport and Joshua Miller of Lamoine; the role of Lauretta by Mary Clark of Worcester, Mass., and Jesslyn Thomas of Rindge, N.H.; and Zita by Alexandra Dietrich of Freeport, Jazmin DeRice of Windham; and Rinuccio by John Coons of Corinna, and George Eisenhauer of Camden.

Mary Bastoni of Fryeburg is La Ciesca; Michelle Rawding of Saint Albans, Vt., is Nella; Brian Tingdahl of Saco is Gherardo; Daniel Pendergast of New Sweden is Marco; David Delano of Belfast is Betto; Joseph Murphy of Lee, N.H., is Simone; Roger Marcotte of Rockland is Amantio di Nicolao, the Notary; Richard Sherman of Hartford, Vt., is Spinelloccio; Dominic Rozzi of Windham is Pinellino; Justin Roux of Winslow is Guccio; and Sebastian Shames of Westbrook is Gherardino.